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Rev. Henry Wilson, D.D. 



Bible Lamps 



for j& 
Little Feet 



By REV. HENRY WILSON, D.D, 




%^ -^ %fr» ^ 

CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE PUB. CO., V V* Nyack, New York 



THE LIBRARY ©F 
©DEGRESS, 

Two Curbs Receives 

JAN. 30 1902 

C©PVR|QHT ENTRY 

CLASS Ots XXa No. 
COPY 3. 



."ftt)C05 



Copyrighted 1902 

BY REV. A. B. SIMPSON 



• ••• ••! ! ! • • 

•• ••••••• • • J , 



Contents 

Preface --------- j 

Lesson One — Some New Things ■■ - - " r - ^ 9 

Lesson Two — Some Bible Boys and Girls of Far-off Days - -12 

Lesson Three — The Boy with the Big Brother - - - 14 

Lesson Four — Looking Backward and Upward - - 17 

Lesson Five — A Boy, a Maiden,, and two .Servants 20 

Lesson Six — The Ministry of the Angels - - - 23 

Lesson Seven — On the Way and All the Way with God - 27 

Lesson Eight — Some First Things - - - - 31 

Lesson Nine — Lights and Lessons by the Way - - - 33 

Lesson Ten — Ourselves in the Bible Looking Glass - -37 

Lesson Eleven — The Bible for Our Eyes 40 

Lesson Twelve — Lamps for Our Feet -• - - 43 

Lesson Thirteen — Pointed Arrows for Human Hearts - - 47 

Lesson Fourteen — Risen with Healing in His Wings - - 49 

Lesson Fifteen — Mounts of Vision and Victory - - - 53 

Lesson Sixteen — Light and Glory - - - - - 57 

Lesson Seventeen — Heart Work of the Word 59 

Lesson Eighteen — Seed and Soil - - - - - 62 

Lesson Ninteen — Stones, Stepping and Others 65 

Lesson Twenty — Living Stones - - - - 69 

Lesson Twenty-one — Precious Stones - 71 

Lesson Twenty-two — Famine and Famishing Ones - - - 75 

Lesson Twenty-three — Honey in the Rock - - - 78 

Lesson Twenty-four — Open Doors - - - - - 81 

Lesson Twenty-five — Silent Victors ----- 85 

Lesson Twenty-six — Clean Hands - - - - - 89 

Lesson Twenty-seven — Stones and Other Things - - 91 

Lesson Twenty-eight — Helping Stones and Stumbling Stones - 95 

Lesson Twenty-nine — Niagara and Its Lessons - - - 98 

Lesson Thirty — "The Little Behind Hand" - 102 

Lesson Thirty-one — Before Hands - 105 

Lesson Thirty-two — The Hot City and the Dying Children - 108 

Lesson Thirty-three — The Big Wee Ones - - - - 11 1 

Lesson Thirty-four — The Sea. the Sea. the Deep, Blue Sea - 115 

Lesson Thirty-five — Shipwrecks and Derelicts - - - 117 
Lesson Thirtv-Six — The Citv ------ 121 



Contents 

Lesson Thirty-seven — The Holy City - 125 

Lesson Thirty-eight — Burden Bearers - 129 

Lesson Thirty-nine — More Burden Bearers - 133 

Lesson Forty — Little Innocents - - - - - 137 

Lesson Forty-one — Royal Burden Bearers - - - 141 

Lesson Forty-two — God's Honor Rolls - 145 

Lesson Forty-three — Answering Hard Questions - - 149 
Lesson Forty-four — Some Shut Ins ----- 152 

Lesson Forty-five — More Shut Ins - . 156 

Lesson Forty-six — New Testament Shut In Ones -. 159 

Lesson Forty-Seven — Souvenirs ----._ 162 

Lesson Forty-eight — Forget-me-nots of Jesus ■- 165 

Lesson Forty-nine — Forget-me-nots of the World Beyond - 169 

Lesson Fifty — Forget-me-nots Once More - 172 

Lesson Fifty-one — Christmas is Coming 177 

Lesson Fifty-two— Christ is Born - - - - - 181 



Illustrations 

Frontispiece 

A Hindu Girl -------- 30 

The Good Shepherd ------- 38 

The Light of the World - - - - - 44 

He is not Here; He is Risen _____ 50 

The First Easter Morning - - - - - 52 

Lookout Mountain ------- 54 

Head of Christ -------- 56 

A Chinese Baby - . - - - - - - 68 

Some India Famine Children - - - - - - 74 

Sailors' and Soldiers' Monument, Indianapolis - - 83 

Jesus and the Children - - - - - - - 94 

Christ and the Children ------ 101 

Sea of Galilee from Tiberias - - - - - - 113 

Jerusalem and Olivet - - - - - 124 

The Great Burden Bearer ------ 140 

Some Children we can Help - M4 

Christ Answering Hard Questions - 147 

Moses - - - - ----- 155 

One who Forgetteth Not - - - - 168 

The Flight into Egypt - 176 

Christmas Angels ___._-- 180 



Preface 

Though a little older in years than most of you, I feel more 
and more as the days go on that I am a child again whenever I 
look into your young faces. I propose that we, you and I, not 
the big people, but you and I, open a little school for the study of 
God's Word. Here, once a week, we shall come to school with 
just one book, not a big pile in a strap, but just one, the Bible it- 
self, and sitting down at the Master's feet, hear what He has to 
tell us out of it. 

Not all of it, for summer and winter, and all eternity, would 
not be enough to listen to all He can tell us of Himself in His 
Word. But just some of it. (i) Some people in it; (2) Some 
things about them ; (3) Some easy lessons we can all learn from 
them. 

Not only the big people, grown up men and women, like 
Abraham and David and Peter and James and John and Paul, 
but just Bible Boys and Girls no bigger than you (and I about 
forty years ago). 

For you know, every man and woman in the Bible, except 
two, was once a baby boy or girl, just as we were, and learned 
to creep and walk and talk and fall down and get up again and 
laugh and cry just as we all have done. Except the two I have 
referred to, they all had many boyish and girlish days of sun- 
shine and clouds, of pleasure and pain, and became stronger 
men and women through these things than they would have 
been without them. So now suppose we open school right away 
and have our first school lesson. Asking the blessing of God 
with our heads bowed and our hearts uplifted, letting Jesus 
the Master, come and take His place in the midst, we will open 
our Bibles and see what we can find about some of the boys and 
girls of those far-off days, before our Saviour, Jesus, was here 
among men. 




Our First Lesson 

I WANT to begin with the best and 
most beautiful words in the Bible, the 
new name that the angel gave to the Some 
baby Boy of Bethlehem before He New 
was born, which has been His name Tmn ^ s 
now for nearly two thousand years, 
and will be His forever. You know 
it well. But I w r ant you to know it better this year 
than ever, and to live it better. 

Then I want the Bible to become a new Book 
to you. You know a great deal of it now. More, 
perhaps, than many older people. But I want it 
to be new to you in the light and beauty that the 
Presence and Life of Jesus in it throws upon every 
part of it. He is the meaning and power of the Bi- 
ble from beginning to end, and this year in our 
weekly talks together my desire is to make the 
Bible a looking-glass in which you may see not 
only yourselves as you really are, but Him as He 
really is, and then by the Holy Spirit what you 
may become in Him. 

Do you remember how He says in Revelation 
xxi. 5, "Behold, I make all things new"? Now 
that word "all" means people as well as things. It 
means boys and girls as well as big people. And 
it means now — right in the beginning of the New 
Year, not on December 31, or when you come to 
die. 

When God makes us "new" by His Holy Spirit 
then all around us becomes new also. You re- 



10 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

member the story of the little girl who was converted at a Gos- 
pel meeting and went home so happy that she said the world 
was all new ? As she walked along she said the sky never looked 
so blue, the birds never sang so sweetly, the grass never looked 
so green, and even the ugly people she met looked beautiful. 
The reason was, she was changed. God had made her new, and 
so all things above, below and around her seemed new also. 

Then think what other wonderful things we would see in 
seeing "a new heaven and a new earth" (Revelation xxi. i). The 
sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, may be just the same as they 
ever were. But when you look up with new eyes you will see 
new meaning and new beauty in each one of them. The star 
which the wise men saw r at the birth of Jesus may have been 
just an ordinary star like any one of the thousands we see every 
night in the sky, but God took it and made it a light to their 
longing eyes, and a lamp unto their willing feet, as they went 
on their way to Bethlehem. It was a little child that said, "The 
stars are God's eyes looking down at me." 

Then think of what other wonderful things we would see 
in these new heavens. St. John says in Revelation iv. i, that 
he saw "a door opened in heaven," and Jesus says, "I am the 
Door." Perhaps it was Jesus he saw standing in that open door,, 
and looking down on him with love and tenderness and show- 
ing him heaven and all its glories as through a clear glass door. 

Dear children, I hope this year will be a New Year in giving 
you a new interest in every human face you see. I would like 
you to think of every new boy and girl you will meet this year as 
a soul for whom Jesus died as well as for you, and whom you 
may win to Him before the year ends. Their eyes and ears maybe- 
open doors for you to enter into their young lives and reach 
their hearts and bring the child Jesus with you, and make it 
heaven for them every day all the way home. You may be God's 
little messenger boys and girls to tell other little children 
this year something about the Child Jesus. Look at them 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 11 

with His eyes. Touch them with His hands. Say, "God bless 
you," as He would and you will never know but what the simple 
word will linger in their ears and memory long after you have 
passed away. 

But now it is time to give you a few Bible questions, based 
on our lessons of making things and people Hew. 

There were two men in the Bible whom God made over 
new by His Spirit, one in the Old Testament and the other in 
the New. They had the same name beginning with ' S." They 
belonged to the same tribe, and its name began w r ith "B." They 
were both hot-tempered. Both died violent deaths. One a very 
sad death. The other a very joyful one. 

Find out who they were, when they lived, and how they died, 
giving book, chapter, and verse. 

There was a beautiful young man whose name began with 
"T," whom God made over new-, and then made him a great 
leader and teacher in the Christian Church. He had charge of a 
great city, beginning with "E." Three people helped him 
greatly to be what God made him : a good grandmother, a good 
mother and a good minister. Their names are all given in the 
New Testament. Find them. 

And here is a Bible riddle sent in by one of the little folks. 
I wonder how many of you can find the answer. 

"A Bible character without a name, 
Who never to corruption came, 
Who died a death ne'er died before, 
Whose shroud is in every housewife's store." 



Lesson II 



Some 
Bible Boys 
acrid Girls 
of 

F^r-Off 
Days 





FIRST QUESTION: Now all attention. 
There was once a little boy of whom 
it is said in the Bible, "God heard the 
voice of the lad." God was with the 
lad, and he dwelt in the wilderness and 
became an archer. When and where 
was this boy born? Who were his 
father and mother? Is his name given in the Bi- 
ble? What kind of a boy do you think he was? 
Find out all you can about him. 
Question two: For the Girls. 
There was a little slave girl once who watched 
her little baby brother as he slept in the queerest 
cradle you ever saw. 

Find her name, and all the Bible says about 
her. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you remember 
what Jesus said He would do for you in John xvi. 

13- 

Before we leave school today let me tell you an 
incident of a Bible class I had many years ago in 
a Canadian city. I used to give Bible verses which 
every one knew almost by heart, but not always 
the book and chapter in which the verse was. One 
evening the text to be found was, "Be sure your 
sins will find you out." A bright little girl went 
home to her grandmother who used to read her 
Bible regularly, and asked her if she knew where 
the familiar words were. Next Thursday the 
little one came to me and said : "Please sir, grand- 
mamma savs she read the whole book of Isaiah 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 13 

and she cannot find that text in it anywhere." I wonder if the 
young members of our school will know better where to find 
that text. And not only the book, chapter and verse, but : — 

(i) Who said it? (2) To whom was it first said? (3) 
When and where ? and (4) W T hat kind of a sin was to find them 
out? A great man once preached a sermon on this text, "Be 
sure your sins will find you out," which I read many years ago, 
but have not forgotten. I did not know till then what the sin 
meant, and I fear a great many big people do not know even 
now. So if you will tell me in the simplest words you can find, 
just what it was, it may help others to keep from committing it. 
Perhaps something in Bible history which happened many years 
after may help you to find the answer to the question. Some 
starving lepers once came upon the camp of the enemies of 
God's people and found it deserted, but abundance of food and 
silver and gold and raiment, and went and hid it. 

And when you have found out all you can about this passage, 
find what the Bible says about one who can lift us "out" of the 
hole into which sin has put us. And better still, not only take us 
out of sin, but take sin out of us. Something even better still, 
put a new life and power into us that will "keep us from stum- 
bling and present us faultless before the presence of His glory 
with exceeding joy (Jude 24). 




&w- 



3r 



..f 



Lesson III 



The Boy 

with the 

Big 

Brother 





ONE THING before we have our lesson. 
I want you to send me the year, month 
and day of your birth, for a birthday book 
which I have, and in which we remember 
the little ones in prayer whose names are 
there, once a month throughout the 
year. In this way by degrees we shall be- 
gin to feel that we know each other and are mem- 
bers one of another in Christ in the fellowship of 
prayer and Bible Study. 

In our Gospel Tabernacle Sunday school we 
use this little prayer on "Birthday Sunday," when 
we make our offering to God of a cent for each 
year of life He has given us. 

God in heaven, onr loving Father, 
These long years by night and day, 

Our little minds Thou hast watched over 
In their sleep, their work, their play. 

May their lives be long and happy, 
Their best love to Thee be given, 

And when life on earth is ended, 
May we meet them all in heaven. 

In the name of Christ, our Saviour, 
These rich blessings we implore, 

Grant them through Thy Holy Spirit, 
God in heaven whom we adore. 

You can sing this also to any 8s and ys tune. 
So now after prayer and song we sit down to 
our second Bible study. 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 15 

First Question : There was once a boy whom his big broth- 
ers called a dreamer, because he seemed to see and hear things 
which other boys did not. He was own brother to the little boy 
whose mother died when he was born. This dreamer was a 
wonderful boy. Find : 

First, where in the Bible the story of his life is told. 

Second, find one of his dreams. 

Third, two terrible places he was in during his life — with 
chapter and verse. 

Fourth, this boy became "a prince and a saviour" to the 
country and people among whom he worked among the pots" 
(Ps. lxxxi. 6). Give in three words, each beginning with "P", 
the main points of this boy's life. 

Second Question : Thirteen hundred years before Jesus was 
born, when the country and people were very rough and wild, 
in a land whose name begins with "M," and her own with "R," 
a little srirl was born. Tell me five things about her : 

First, her name and the meaning of it. 

Second, the town where she lived for a long time and the 
meaning of it. 

Third, the sweet name of her mother and its meaning. 

Fourth, the name of a king who sprang from our little girl 
friend. 

Fifth, the name of "his Greater Son." 

Third Question : Where are we told in the Bible that "the 
morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for 
joy"? 

Fourth Question : Give the words of the angels' song when 
the Son of God was born. 

Xow to rest you after sitting so long in study, I give you a 
beautiful riddle of which the answer is in the Bible, in the twen- 
ty-third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. 



16 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

There's a queer little house that stands in the sun, 

When the grandmother calls the children all run. 

While under her roof it is cozy and warm , 

Though the cold wind may whistle and bluster and storm. 

In the daytime this queer little house moves away, 

And the children run after so happy and gay; 

But it comes back at night and the children are fed, 

And tucked up to sleep in their warm cozy bed. 

This queer little house has no windows nor doors, 

The roof has no chimneys, the rooms have no floors, 

No fireplaces, chimneys, no stoves can you see; 

Yet the children are cozy and warm as can be. 

The story of this little house is quite true, 

I have seen it myself and I'm sure you have too. 

God look for it now in the Bible this minute — 

Find chapter and verse, and see that it's in it. 




Lesson IV 



Looking 
Backward 
and 
Upward 




THIS is our fourth session or 
study hour together. So 1 
purpose that we make this 
a kind of Review Day, go 
over the Bible questions 
we have had so far, and the 
answers to them. 

1. "The lad whose voice God heard" was Ish- 
mael (Genesis xxi. 20). 

He lived nearly two thousand years before 
Christ. 

2. The little slave girl that watched by the 
floating cradle of her little brother was Miriam 
(Exodus ii. 4). 

3. "Be sure your sin will find you out" is in 
Numbers xxxii. 23, and was said by Moses to the 
tribes of Gad and Reuben when they were inclined 
to settle down in an easy place and let the other 
tribes do the work and the hard fighting. The sin 
was selfishness — love of ease. 

4. "Thou shalt see greater things than these" 
was the promise of Jesus to Nathaniel in St. John 
i. 50, and is for every simple-hearted child of God 
now as well as then. 

5. The boy who was called a "dreamer" by his 
older brothers was Joseph, who from pit and pris- 
on came to the palace and became a "prince and 
saviour to Egypt and to his own people." The 
story is told in Genesis from chapter xxxvii. to 
the end of the book. 



18 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

6. The little girl who was born thirteen hundred years be- 
fore Jesus was Ruth, the heathen girl. First of Moab and sec- 
ond of Bethlehem, the house of Bread, and from whom : First, 
David the king, and afterwards Jesus our King came (Ruth i. 
etc.). 

7. "The morning stars sang together and the sons of God 
shouted for joy" is found in Job xxxviii. 7. 

8. The angels sang for Jesus : "Glory to God in the highest," 
etc., is found in St. Luke ii. 16. 

9. The "queer little house that stands in the sun," etc., is the 
hen mother with her chickens, of which Jesus speaks so ten- 
derly in St. Matthew xxiii. 37. 

So, dear children, you see that in two Bible studies we have 
found out something about two boys, two girls, a chorus of an- 
gels in heaven, another chorus of them on earth, and a dear old 
mother hen and her little chickens, used by our Lord Jesus as a 
picture of His love for Jerusalem and His people. 

Surely our time has not been misspent, and I hope you are 
all as encouraged as I am to go on with our lessons and learn 
more and more of the boys and girls of the Bible. 

First Question : "Moreover, his mother made him a little 
coat and brought it to him from year to year." Tell me : 

1. The name of the child and its meaning. 

2. His father's and mother's name. 

3. What kind of a house he lived in. 

4. What was his business. 

5. How long did he live and where was he buried? 
Second question: "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy" 

(Psalm cxxvi. 5). 

Tell me some of the Bible boys and girls who sowed tears 
of sorrow and pain on the earth, but are now reaping in joy in 
lieaven. To help you I give you the books and chapters where 
some of them are found: 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 19 

Exodus ii.'; Jeremiah xxxi. ; Matthew ii. ; II. Samuel xii. 15; 
I. Kings xvii. 17; II. Kings iv,, and several other places. 

Third Question : A five-year-old boy, the grandson of a king, 
who was lame in his feet. Tell me his name ; and how often it is 
mentioned in the Bible; and how he became lame. 

To rest your minds after study I give you (1) a Bible riddle 
just as true as that about the hen and her chickens. 

"We left our little ones at home 

And whither went we did not know, 
We for the Church's sake did roam, 

And lost our lives in doing so. 
We wandered in a perfect way, 

With the wicked in full view; 
To men we lived, to God we died, 

Yet of religion never knew." 




Lesson V 



A Boy, 
A Maiden 
and two 
Servants 




THIS lesson is about a kingly boy, 
who died sadly, a little maid 
who won a soul, and a servant who 
frightened and another who wel- 
comed a great apostle with some les- 
sons in rhyme. 

First Question : A beautiful boy 

with wonderful hair, who gave his 

father, who was a king, a great deal of trouble. 

Tell me his name, his great sin, and his sudden 

death. 

Second question : A little Jewish girl, a captive 
in a strange land, a servant maid to a heathen wo- 
man, and yet was true to God, bore her witness 
bravely and was the means of saving her master 
from an incurable disease. 

Where is her story told in the PJible and what 
was her master's name? 

Third question : A maid servant who fright- 
ened a great apostle, and another who knew his 
voice and believed it was he when others doubted. 
Tell me the name of the latter and what you know 
about the former. 

Here are questions all from the Bible, and all 
about boys and girls like yourself, with their joys 
and sorrows. May the Holy Spirit teach you the 
lessons which their lives suggest without my try- 
ing to do so. 

Here are some rhymes that may sing some 
truth into vour hearts : 



Bible La.mps for Little Feet 21 

i. A poem- entitled somebody else. 

Somebody Else 

"Who's Somebody Else? I should like to know, 

Does he live at the North or South? 
Or is it a lady fair to see 

Whose name is in every one's mouth? 
For Meg says, 'Somebody Else will sing,' 

Or, 'Somebody Else can play,' 
And Jack says, 'Please let Somebody Else 

Do some of the errands today.' 

"If there's any hard or unpleasant task 

Or difficult thing to do 
'Tis always offered to Somebody Else — 

Now isn't this very true? 
But if some fruit or a pleasant trip 

Is offered to Dick and Jess, 
We hear not a word about Somebody Else. 

Why? I will leave you to guess. 

"The words of cheer for a stranger lad, 

This Somebody Else will speak, 
And the poor and helpless who need a friend 

Good Somebody Else must seek. 
The cup of cold water in Jesus' name 

Oh, Somebody Else will offer, 
And words of love for a broken heart 

Brave Somebody Else will proffer. 

"There are battles in life we only can fight, 

And victories too, to win, 
And Somebody Else can take our place, 

When we shall have "entered in," 
But if Somebody Else has done his work 

While we for our ease have striven, 
'Twill be only fair if the blessed reward 

To Somebody Else is given. 

2. A chorus of which I am very fond. 



22 Bible Latrnps for Little Feet 

"Grace there is my every debt to pay, 
Blood to wash my every sin away, 
Power to keep me spotless day by day, 
For me, for me." 

3. A hymn which we love to sing in our meetings, and 
which one of the children has asked me to give : 

"Give me a heart like Thine, 
Give me a heart like Thine, 

By Thy wonderful power, 

By Thy grace every hour, 
Give me a heart like Thine." 

Or, as has been suggested : 

"Give me Thy heart in mine," etc. 

"Help me to love like Thee, 
Help me to love like Thee. 

By Thy wonderful power, 

By Thy grace every hour, 
Help me to love like Thee." 

"Live out Thy life in me, 
Live out Thy life in me, 
By Thy wonderful power. 
By Thy grace every hour, 
Live out Thy life in me." 



Lesson VI 




OUR Bible School lesson today is to be 
about "The Angels." 

"What is an angel?" I asked that 

question once in a talk to the children 

and a bright little girl said : "A beautiful 

thing with wings, that lives up in heaven 

and sings." 

But my talk today is to be about angels that 

have no wings, that do not live up in heaven, but 

down here on earth, and some of whom do not 

know a note of music or a single tune. 

"Funny angels," you say, "no wings, no song, 
and clown here, and not up there above the bright 
blue sky." 

But you will soon see that it all depends on 
what we mean by the word we are using. The 
real meaning of "angel," is "one that carries a 



The 

Ministry 
of the 
Angels 



(i) Things may be angels ; (2) animals may be 
angels ; (3) birds may be angels ; (4) fish may be 
angels ; (5) babies may be angels ; (6) boys and 
girls may be angels just as well as the beautiful 
being with wings that lives up in heaven and sings. 
And I want to show you all this from the Bible it- 
self as well as from the open book of our dailv 
life. 

For instance : I know a true story of a strange 
little wooden angel. It was a piece of chip given 
by a missionary to a poor native, with a few words 
on it asking the missionary's wife to send him the 




24 Bible La.mps for Little Feet 

axe. The poor, ignorant native got the axe for his master by 
the piece of wood. It was the means of his conversion. For he 
said that man must be a god for he made a chip talk. Was not 
the chip an angel to him? 

A piece of crepe on a door bell, a black-edged letter, may be 
an angel, a messenger of sorrow and death to us. A bright 
Christmas card was an angel to a poor drunkard once. He saw 
it in a shop window on his way to the saloon. The card was 
shaped like an angel and had tinsel wings, and as it flashed in 
the gaslight it brought a message to his poor heart, and told 
him of better days. He bought the pasteboard angel and with 
it came a soul and future for himself and his family. I saw a 
strange-looking angel one wet day on Broadway, New York 
City. It was a little boy with a rubber cap, rubber coat and 
rubber boots, running along the muddy street, carrying a tele- 
gram in his hand. No wings, no song, not in heaven, but an 
angel surely, carrying joy or sorrow to some one in that envel- 
ope in his hand. 

Now take your Bibles and see how true this is in God's own 
Book, and perhaps before our lesson is over you will see that 
God has more angels than you ever thought of. 

That was a very curious angel God sent to a very clever man 
one day 1452 years before Jesus was born. It had no wings, no 
hands, no lovely face, but a coarse, hairy body, an ugly face and 
four feet, and could only make a horrible noise with its mouth. 
This poor dumb thing was carrying the clever man on its 
back. He was so blind that he could not see where he was 
going. But the dumb angel who was carrying him saw. And 
God made the dumb to speak and the deaf to hear in a very 
strange way that day. You will find this angel story in Num- 
bers xxii., and also in II. Peter ii. 

Birds can be angels of God as well as beasts. A man with 
seven other people was floating on a great ocean of water in 
a very strange kind of a boat one day. He wanted to know if 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 25 

there was arfy land to be seen and he sent out a black angel 
that never came back. I wonder why? Then he sent a white 
angel that came back with a beautiful thing in its mouth, that 
told the man there was land near by. Do you know who the 
man was ? Do you know what these angels were, and where in 
the Bible this angel story is to be found? 

Do you remember the story of the black angels who brought 
bread and meat in their mouths for a lonely man who was living 
by a little river whose name begins with C. and the man's name 
with E. ? 

Fish can be angels of God as well as beasts and birds. I 
know of an angel of the sea to whom God spoke and told him 
(i) to take in a man of God to his strange house under the sea, 
and then (2) to open the door and let him out again. Jesus says 
this strange story of the sea is true. Do you believe it? I do 
just because Jesus said so. Where did He say it is true, and 
what beautiful use did our Lord make of it? 

Jesus Himself, when the disciples wanted a little money to 
pay the taxes brought a very queer angel up out of the water, 
with a piece of money in his mouth, worth about thirty cents. 
Teter took it out of the angel's mouth and paid the taxes. Now 
if God can use such very simple things as a chip, a dumb brute, a 
bird, a fish, as an angel, or messenger — for remember, that is 
what the word means — how much more can He use little boys 
and girls as His message bearers ? 

Let us close this lesson with one or two examples of human 
angels : 

One day Jesus found His big people talking about who was 
the biggest, and He took a tiny little angel and put him in the 
middle where they all could see him. Then He said something 
for big people to remember forever and ever. See if you can 
find the passage and message Jesus gave us through the object 
lesson of the angel child. 

Another day, near the end of His life on earth, our Lord 



26 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

Jesus found a number of little human angels singing in the house 
of God. The big people got angry because they did not like 
what the angels were singing in praise of our Lord. Then Jesus 
asked them if they did not remember what a certain Psalm, writ- 
ten more than a thousand years before, said about singing ba- 
bies. You have not forgotten it, though those big, wise men 
did. Tell me the story of the singing babies in the Gospel and 
give the verse of the old Psalm of which Jesus speaks. 

Now find the human angels mentioned in the following 
passages, and give me the answers as soon as you can : 

(i) St. Matthew xxvii. 19; (2) St. Matthew xxviii. 9; (3) St. 
Mark v. 20; (4) St. Mark xiv. 8, 9 and 13 ; (5) Acts xxiii. 16-22. 




Lesson VII 




I AM GOING to give you a talk on some 
of the Life Lessons which we can learn 
from continually moving to and fro on 
the Lord's business. 

I. Everybody you meet on the cars 
and boats is going somewhere. Among 
the thousands I have seen in my trav- 
els I do not think I have ever found one man or 
woman who was just "out for a ride" — or out to 
"kill time" as people say — except in the very hot 
weather in our big cities, when the tired mothers 
take the little ones out for a change of air and rest. 
Children dear, if our Great Conductor on the 
Train of Life should ask us where we are going, 
could we give Him a good answer? What defi- 
nite purpose have we in our life journey? General 
Booth said once, "I am so glad that I know what I 
am in the world for ; and that I found it out long 
ago and very early in my life. 

Take your Bibles now for a moment and find 
out for me some men and women, boys and girls 
who were not on the train "just for fun," but with 
an end in view for God and man. 

A little girl who never saw a locomotive or a 
train in her life knew what she was on the way for 
when she went to get a nurse for her baby broth- 
er. That was her reason for being in the world 
just then, and she did it with all her heart, and got 
just the right person at the right time. Tell me 
who she was and what kind of a boat her little 



On the 
Way 
and all 
the Way 
with God 




28 Bible LaLinps for Little Feet 

baby brother was sailing in when he was found by the daughter 
of a king. 

A little boy was on the way of life one day long ago and got 
lost in a crowd, so His mother thought. But He was found to 
be on the right road, and in just the right place in it, doing what 
His Father sent Him to do. 

Tell me who He was — where they found Him and what He 
said about Himself. 

But you must know "when to start*' as well as where you 
are going to on the railroad of life. 

Some people I have met never seem to know just when the 
train starts, or where the station is, how long they expect to 
be on the train, and what the fare is, and so if you ask them any 
of these questions, when they mean to "start for heaven," or 
"give their hearts to God," they do not seem to know, or say 
"somebody" is going to look after all these things for them. 

See how the Bible warns us about the importance of these 
things. 

(i) II. Corinthians vi. 2; (2) Romans xiii. 11; (3) Matthew 
vii. 13, 14; (4) Micah ii. 10; (5) Amos iv. 12; (6) St. Luke xiv. 
31.32. 

Then when we have gotten on the train and have fairly 
started, how many things may happen before we reach our 
final station. 

(1) Accidents ; (2) washouts ; (3) snow storms ; (4) delays and 
lots of other things of which we ought to think and for which 
we should prepare. 

Many years ago in Canada I was on a train which was near- 
ly buried in a snow storm for fourteen hours, and it took us 
twenty-three hours to go about one hundred and twenty miles. 
The next day I had to preach in Toronto and you will find my 
text in II. Timothy iv. 21, first clause. 

Look up in your Bibles now some of God's insurance poli- 
cies and safeguards against these things, and see how safe we 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 29 

may feel when we are traveling on His road and His business. 

(i) Psalm xci. is a splendid insurance on your life when 
traveling, and all you have to pay as premium is : Psalm xxxvii. 
5. Do you wonder sometimes if this train "goes through," or 
"can I trust the engine driver not to go to sleep," or "If I have 
to change will the conductor be sure and tell me when and 
where ?" or "when will I arrive ?" and "will there be anyone to 
meet me?" 

Look again in the Bible and see how sweetly God answers 
all these and many other questions. 

(1) Isaiah xli. 10; (2) Deuteronomy xxxi. 6, 8; (3) Psalm 
cxxi. 3-8; (4) Isaiah xxx. 21. 

And for the welcome we have when the journey is over see : 

(1) II. Peter i. 11 ; Matthew xxv. 34; Revelation vii. 14-17; 
(2) Revelation xxii. 4, 5, and verse 17. 

The Bible meaning of all the signals and lights, red, green 
and white, will be very plain if you will hunt up the following 
passages : 

Red signal: Proverbs iv. 14, 15; i. 10; I. Thess. v. 22. 

Green signal : Ephesians v. 15 ; Luke xii. 15 ; II. Peter iii. 17. 

White signal: Psalm v. 8; Exodus xiv. 15; John xiv. 6. 




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Lesson VIII 



Some 

First 

Things 





WISH to tell you the answers to the 
questions in our previous lessons. 

"It is more blessed," etc., is found in 
Acts xx. 35, where St. Paul says they 
are "the words of the Lord Jesus," 
though we do not know just when or to 
whom He said them. See what St. John 
says in chapter xxi. 25, about the "doings" of Je- 
sus, and then you will not wonder that we have not 
all His "words" put down in the Gospels.' 

The beautiful photograph of our Lord of which 
I asked you is found in Acts x. 38. 

The Remembrance Album is referred to in Mal- 
achi iii. 16. The answer to the queen's riddle, 

A Bible character without a name, 
Who never to corruption came. 
Who died a death ne'er died before. 
Whose shroud is in every housewife's store, 

is found in Genesis xix. 26; and St. Luke xvii. 32. 

The two men about whom I asked you in our 
lesson, whose names began with "S" are of course 
Saul, the son of Kish, the fist king of Israel (I. 
Sam. ix.) ; and Saul of Tarsus (Acts vii. 58, etc.). 

The beautiful young man whose name began 
with "T" is Timothy, and his grandmother's name 
was Lois, and his mother's Eunice, while the good 
minister was St. Paul, whom God used to win 
young Timothy to Christ. Read Acts xvi. with the 
references and you will see the story of his life 
outlined there. 



32 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

As we hope to take up our Bibles this year with new inter- 
est let me ask you some of the first things : 

1. What were the first words spoken to man? 

2. Who was the first shepherd mentioned in the Bible ? 

3. W r ho was the first person who died a natural death? 

4. Where are the wicked first spoken of as sinners ? 

5. Who was the first person called "The Hebrew"? 

6. Where did an angel first appear to a woman? 

7. Where is "current money" first mentioned in the Bible ? 

8. Of what did the first wedding present consist? 

9. W r here is giving a tenth to God first mentioned? 

10. Where are horses first spoken of? 

11. Where did an angel first appear to Moses? 

12. Who was the first Jewish high priest? 




Lesson IX 




BEFORE our Bible questions today let me 
ask you one suggested by an incident that 
happened to a woman on a steamboat 
some time ago. She forgot her purse and 
y \J had no money to pay her fare, and no one 
" % in the crowd on the boat from whom she 
would like to ask it. She saw the man 
coming to collect the fares. He came very near 
first on one side, and then was called away. Then 
he came up close to her on the other side taking 
fares from each person, but strange to say did not 
ask her. She felt so relieved because she had no 
money, and thought God had kept the man from 
asking her for the fare because God knew she had 
not the money. Now what do you think about it ? 
Was there anything she ought to have done after- 
wards? What would you do as a little Christian 
boy or girl, after a trip like that, and you found 
your pocketbook safe and sound at home ? Please 
tell me, for I really want to know, and give me a 
text from the Bible on which you would base your 
actions. 

Then here are two beautiful, short stories sent 
me by a dear friend who loves little children, and I 
am sure you will read them with interest. Each of 
them suggests certain Bible texts and promises. 
The first one is entitled, "Story of a Little German 
Girl." 

Eighteen years ago this girl, then ten years old, 
was taught by her mother to trust God, and be- 
lieve if she asked Him in prayer for anything He 
would answer her; she was a poor child and 



Lights 
and 

Lessons 
by the 
Way 




34 Bible L^mps tor Little Feet 

had no fine clothes to wear, but her mother sent her 
to school neat and clean always ; she was smart in her books 
— smarter than many of the girls in her class who dressed better 
and felt they Avere better than Louise, for that was the little 
miss' name. The richer girls would ask her to let them copy 
sums from her slate after she got the right answer, and as she 
was good and accommodating she did so. Louise had a cousin 
in the same school who was in better circumstances than she 
was, and her name was Lena, and she did not treat Louise 
nicely because she was poor. One day the rich girls with Lena 
proposed to go after school to hunt wild flowers, and because 
Louise had been so kind as to help them often with their lessons, 
they laid aside their false pride and asked Louise to go too, but 
Lena said she did not want Louise to go for she did not dress 
well, but the girls said she should, and so off she ran into the 
fields, and on the way Lena's evil spirit influenced them all to 
run and hide from Louise so she could not find them and would 
then have to go home. Now comes a sad, dark time for Louise 
for she could not find any of them and she did not know the 
way home, so she remembered her mother taught her to trust 
God in prayer, and she knelt and asked Him to lead her home, 
and on getting up, far off along the tree tops she saw the spire 
of the village church, and so keeping that for a guide she came 
safe to her home. 

The other story is this : — Some fifty years ago in a Southern 
State, lived a mother with three children, Mary, Jess and 
Emma. The mother was getting them ready for bed and took 
the two younger ones first, leaving Mary to wait till she tucked 
away Jess and Emma. Mary was five years old, and while she 
waited she stood in the doorway looking out into the clear, 
calm night ; when her mother was ready for her, she called her, 
but Mary did not go, and then the mother said: "Come my 
child, I want to put you to bed. What are you looking up at 
so long?" "I am watching God light His candles, mamma." 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 35 

She had reference to the stars as they came out one by one here 
and there, as the darkness deepened. This little girl is a grown 
woman now and God has lighted a candle in her heart never to 
be blown out. 

Give me the passage where it says, God put these lights in 
the heavens, and what they were put there for. 

The stars have been shining now for nearly six thousand 
years. Will they ever go out like the candles to which the 
little girl in the story compared them ? There are some strange 
things said in the Bible about thf stars. In various places we 
read of: 

(i) Stars "fighting." (2) Stars "singing." (3) Stars "fal- 
ling." (4) Stars "guiding." (5) Stars "wandering." (6) Stars 
'"numbered." (7) Stars "named." 

Find as many of these passages as you can, and if you have 
not time to write them out give the chapter and verse. 

Now let us come away down from the stars in heaven to lit- 
tle boys and girls on the earth, for a while, before we close our 
lesson. 

Xext to our mothers and fathers who takes the most care 
of us when we are very young, just before and after we begin 
to walk? Is it not the one we are apt to forget or think little 
of? The Nurse. How often we would have fallen, broken our 
little bones, or perhaps been injured for life, but for the care of 
that faithful woman, who when mother was sick or weary, fed 
us, clothed us, washed and cared for us day by day. 

So God has always provided someone to nurse us, until we 
were big enough to help ourselves. There are some nurses men- 
tioned in the Bible. I know of four in the Old Testament which 
I would like you to find and tell me their names if given and the 
children whom they took care of. 

Genesis xxxv. ; Exodus ii. ; vii. 20; Ruth iv. ; II. Samuel iv. 
4; ix. 13 and xix. 26, will help you to find them. Then read 
these lines about little feet and be thankful that you can run 



36 



Bible Latmps for Little Feet 



about on yours, to work or play, when so many are lame or 
crippled. 

By the Patter of his Feet 

I can tell my little boy 

By the patter of his feet, 
Whether in the bare old kitchen, 

Or upon the village street. 
I can tell the restless footfall 

Just wherever it may be, 
Whether with a dozen urchins, 

Or with only two or three. 
• 

I know not how I know it, 

That is hidden e'en from me, 
.So I cannot tell to others 

The sweet little mystery. 
Like the secret of the sunlight, 

Shining on the happy earth, 
Like the secret of dear childhood 

Filled with artless, gentle mirth. 




Lesson X 




OUR lesson is to be : ''The Bible for our 
bodies." 

First, for our eyes. What a wonder- 
ful "looking glass" the Bible is ! You 
know some glasses make things look big- 
ger and some smaller than they really 
are. Some glasses make your face look 
broad and round, and others long and thin and 
lean, when you are really neither one or the other, 
and you laugh at the caricature the glass makes of 
you. Xow the Bible shows us just as we are. 

David, once a shepherd boy and then a king, 
after a great sin, looked one day into a strange 
looking glass and saw himself as he was in the 
sight of God. A story about the man who had the 
ewe lamb was the hand glass that the Holy Ghost 
used to show the king the sin he had committed 
and then he told God all about it in a Psalm, which 
will never die as long as there are poor sinful 
men and women on the earth. 

Find the story in the Bible of the little ewe 
lamb, the name of the man of God who told it, and 
the first verse of the Psalm the penitent king sang 
out to God in his great sorrow for it. 

Then see what the Bible says about itself as a 
looking glass for your soul. 

If you look up the following passages they will 
help you. And if you commit some of them to 
memory they will be a kind of little pocket glass 
which you can take out at any time and place and 



Ourselves 
in the 
Bible 
Looking 
Glass 



38 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 




The Good Shepherd 



see yourselves as you are before God: (i) Psalm cxix. 18. (2) 
Job xlii. 5, 6. (3) Ezra ix. 6. (4) Matthew vii. 3, 4, 5. (5) 
James i. 23-27. 

Then the Bible is a wonderful Microscope, that is, you know, 
a kind of instrument with a glass in it which helps us to see 
things too small for the naked eye. Put a drop of water before 
the microscope and you will see such a lot of strange little 
creatures moving around in it. Yes, so full of them that you 
will say : "Could I ever drink such stuff as that ?" 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 39 

Just so, dear children, the Word of God, lighted by the 
Holy Ghost, is the Microscope of our sins. 

Things that we call only faults, small and light as the wing 
of a fly, we see by our Bible glass to be sins, big and ugly 
enough to shadow our whole lives. Our hearts are like the 
drop of water. In the eyes of others and of ourselves they 
seem to be all right. But put them for a moment under the 
searching light of our Bible Microscope and oh, how you start 
back as you look and see how alive they are with thoughts 
and desires which we never saw before. There is a golden 
text on this point which I am very fond of and often say to 
God in prayer when I am alone with Him. It begins with 
"Search me, O God," and ends with "everlasting." See if you 
can find it in your Bibles and then learn it by heart. 

But the Bible is more than a Microscope. If it were only 
this it would be very, very sad for us. If it only showed us 
our sins and our faults, our flaws and mistakes, we would be 
cast down and perhaps think we were so bad that we could 
never be good. So I love to think of the Word of God as a 
"Telescope." You know that means a w r onderful instrument 
which, by looking through, brings things that are far away 
very near and makes them clear to us. Look up into the sky 
on a clear night through a good telescope and you see the 
moon and stars twice as big and twice as near as they were 
before, and you seem almost able to touch them and talk to 
them. 

Xow what the telescope does in appearance, the Bible does 
in reality. It brings God my Father, Jesus my Saviour, and the 
Holy Ghost, my Teacher, all the way down from heaven to me. 
Not merely now to show me my sin, but to take it all away and 
put Himself and His power to be and to live in its place. 



Lesson XI 



The Bible 

for 

Our Eyes 





A LOOKING GLASS, a micro- 
scope and a telescope was our 
last talk. Now for our hands it 
has water and cleansing as well 
as light and sight for our eyes. 
"The Word of God for our 
Hands." Next to our hearts and 
our eyes God wants our hands to be clean. 

1. Tell me what Job says about snow water and 
clean hands. And David about 

2. Clean hands and a pure heart. And St. Paul 
about 

3. Holy hands without wrath, etc. 

4. A man who washed his hands in water, but 
could not make them clean, because his soul was 
dirty. 

5. Another man whose mother put a strange 
kind of kid gloves on his hands to deceive his old 
father. 

6. A woman whose hand used a hammer with 
terrible effect. 

7. A king whose hand was dried up in daring 
to do a wrong thing. 

8. A withered hand made whole again by the 
Word of the King of kings. 

9. A tired hand that touched the hem of a gar- 
ment with wonderful results. 

10. Dead hands and bound made alive and 
free. 

11. A little girl, a boy, and a blind man whom 
Jesus took by the hand. 



Bible L©Lmps for Little Feet 41 

12. The hand that holds seven stars. 

Here are twelve Bible questions about our hands used for 

or against, or with God in Jesus. And now to rest your tired 

eyes and brains after finding them, read these two short but 

beautiful stories sent me bv two ladv friends who love children : 

"Dese Singers" 

A beautiful vase lay broken upon the floor. A little three- 
year-old girl was standing by the fragments, with two little 
hands held up, her mother had heard the crash and had come 
into the room to see what was the matter ; Millie ran to her 
mother saying : "T'aint mine bad girl, dese singers bad, 'ey 
broke booty ting." Mamma told her the fingers only did what 
Millie had in her mind to do, so the thought came first, then 
the act. 

How many boys and girls have bad "singers 1 ' that do things 
that are wrong? Do you want to have good fingers that are 
ready to do good and blessed things ? Well, the only way to 
get them is to ask Jesus to give you a new, clean heart, then He 
will put the desire inside to do what is right. 

I know there are many boys and girls who really want to 
do right, and start out in the morning fully determined to 
have that day's record clean at home and at school ; when be- 
fore they are aware they are doing just what they had not in- 
tended. The reason is they are trying to be good themselves ; 
the only way is to ask Jesus to be the good boy or girl in them. 
He loves little children greatly, and He knows all the trials of 
children, for you know He was a child Himself. 

Once upon a time three little children in Canada got a gov- 
erness, their first one. Before she came to live with them the 
eldest boy was almost always with his grandmamma, who 
spoilt him and let him have his own way so often, which made 
him very selfish and unkind to his little sister and brother, 
who as a rule played nicely together. But as soon as S — 
joined them there was always discord, which made things tin- 



42 Bible LaLmps for Little Feet 

pleasant all round. On these occasions the governess would 
call S — and ask him whether he were going to please Satan 
or Jesus. After a moment or two, as if there was a battle tak- 
ing place in his little heart he would say, "Jesus," and the gov- 
erness knew then there would be no more quarreling for the 
time being. They were taught a hymn about fighting battles 
for our Lord : 

When deep within our swelling hearts, 
The thoughts of pride and anger rise, 

When bitter words are on our tongues, 
And tears of passion in our eyes; 

Then we may stay the angry blow, 

Then we may check the hasty word, 
Give gentle answers back again, 

And fight a battle for our Lord. 

Soon after learning this hymn S — came to his governess 
and said his sister had taken away his toy, mentioning it, 
"And I did not snatch it back or hit her. Did I fight a battle 
for our Lord?" This showed plainly that the good seed was 
taking root, and consequently bringing forth fruit. 

One afternoon S — felt very unwell and lay quietly on the 
lounge, until it was time for the evening reading, when the 
governess with the trio around her, asked S — what he would 
like to read about, and he answered : "St John's vision of hea- 
ven in the island of Patmos." She also gave him his choice of 
the hymn to be sung and he requested "There is a Happy Land 
far, far away." 

Bye and bye his mamma came home and the doctor was 
sent for, and S — had a bedroom for himself that night, and 
next morning he was wrapped up in blanke'ts and taken away 
to his grandmamma's in a carriage. Four days later Jesus 
sent one of His angels who escorted him to that beautiful hea- 
ven he loved to hear about. 



Lesson XII 




LET us take up our Bibles and see 
what the Word of God says it will be 
to our feet, if we look right into it with 
our eyes, and listen carefully to it with 
our ears, and try to understand it with 
our hearts. 

Find the passage where the words 
are, "Thy word, lamp, feet, light, path. God says 
His Word is a lamp. A tiny lamp fastened to your 
ankles, going with you just enough of the way 
to take one step and not two at a time, making a 
little circle of light and brightness about you as 
you go. 

Then remember this "foot-light" of the Word 
will help some one else. A little traveler on the 
way behind you is getting tired and wants to stop, 
sit down, or go back. But he looks round and sees 
your little feet lighted by the tiny lamps plodding 
bravely on, and he takes heart and starts again 
with new courage. 

Once in Canada, in winter, after a great snow 
storm, I was driving along in a sleigh over a very 
bad road, on a very dark night. W T e could hardly 
see a step before us. So while the man drove, 1 
held a lantern out at the side of the sleigh, as low 
down as possible, so that the horse might see where 
to put his feet. After a while I took in the light. 
But as I did a voice came from behind on the road, 
"I say, hang out that light again, please, it helps us 



Lamps 
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The Light of the World 



Bible L^mps for Little Feet 45 

here behind so much to see our way." I thought of the help 
and comfort we are sometimes giving without our knowing it 
and then of these lines : 

"Let the lower lights be burning, 
Send a gleam across the wave, 
Some poor struggling, fainting seaman 
You may rescue, you may save." 

And then came to me what the poor blind man said who car- 
ried a lantern when he went out at night, "I carry this," he 
said, "to keep the people who can see me from running into 
me." 

i. Now find in your Bibles a little lamplighter, whose name 
begins with S., who showed a bright light to an old man whose 
name begins with E. 

2. A man whose name begins with A, who lit the lamps at 
even; and see what the margin says there. 

3. A little girl whose feet must have had the Word of Christ 
for a lamp and light to her path for she carried the knowl- 
edge of God into a very dark place, far away from her home, 
and saved a great big man and a soldier from a dreadful fate. 

4. A man whose name begins with "P" gave not only light, 
but strength by a word from the mouth of God to a poor, lame 
beggar. When I read this beautiful saying in the New Testa- 
ment, I always think of what Isaiah said seven hundred and 
forty-three years before in his thirty-fifth chapter. 

5. A man whose name begins with "B" had great light from 
God and said wonderful words for God, but used them wrongly 
and died a sad death. Tell me : 

(a) One beautiful word he said about Jesus fourteen hun- 
dred and fifty years before He came. 

(b) A beautiful prayer he made about dying right which was 
not answered because he failed to live right. 

One more blesed thing' the Word of God is to our feet be- 



46 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

sides light and strength ; it is music. You know how much 
better we can march to music than without it. In the kinder- 
garten the little ones always walk and work to the sound of 
music. In the East they sometimes wear little bells and tink- 
ling ornaments on their ankles and as they walk every step 
makes music. Where does the Bible speak of "Bells of Gold?" 

(6) "Bells of the horses." 

(7) "Beautiful feet," and read also Ephesians vi. 15 ; St. Luke 
i. 79; St. John xiii. 3-17; and you will see how much the Word 
of God means for our feet. 

And here is a picture sent me by a friend of what girls can 
be and do, which I hope is true of some city girls as well as 
of those in the country : 

Country Girls 

Up early in the morning, 

Just at the peep of day, 
Straining the milk in the dairy, 

Turning the cows away — 
Sweeping the floor in the kitchen, 

Making the beds up stairs, 
Washing the breakfast dishes, 

Dusting the parlor chairs. 

Brushing the crumbs from the pantry. 

Hunting the eggs in the barn, 
Cleaning the turnips for dinner, 

Spinning the stocking j^arn, 
Spreading the whitening linen, 

Down on the bushes below, 
Ransacking every meadow. 

Where the red strawberries grow. 



Lesson XIII 




OUR talk today is to be on "the Word of 
God for our hearts" (Ps. cxix. 130). It 
is said "The entrance of Thy Word giv- 
eth light, it giveth understanding unto 
the simple," that is, to the little ones. 
So if you and I are simple enough, and 
little enough, we may see wonderful 
things in the Bible for our hearts. And you know 
they are the most important part of us. 

I have a picture before me of a human heart 
with an arrow sticking right in the center of it. 
That is just what the Word of God is to the heart 
of a sinner. Now with our Bibles open let us find 
some people to whom the Word of God came like 
an arrow or a sword. 

1. The man whose name begins with "A" and 
ends with "N," mentioned in Joshua vii., was 
pierced with the arrow of conviction. Read the 
story and tell me what his sin was, and the sad re- 
sult of it. 

2. Another man whose name also begins with 
"A," in the New Testament, was killed by one 
stroke of the arrow of God's Word, for one lie 
told, not to man, but to the Holy Ghost. 

Give me the chapter and verse. The name of 
his wife who sinned and suffered with him, and the 
man of God who shot the arrow. 

3. Find for me the passage which speaks of the 
Word of God as "quick, living, powerful, and 
sharper than any two-edged sword," etc., and ask 



Pointed 

Arrows 

for 

Human 

Hearts 




48 Bible LaLmps for Little Feet 

father and mother to find some other examples in the Bible 
where it was thus, especially one where a big strong man began 
to cry, when he remembered one saying of his best Friend. 

Here are two examples from history. There was a very 
wicked man of the court of Charles the Second, of England, 
called Rochester. He laughed at God, and all holy things and 
people and lived a very impure life. One day he took up the 
Bible in fun to "pull it to pieces," as he had often done before. 
But this time he opened the Book at Isaiah liii. a little chapter 
of only twelve verses. As he read the story of the "Man of sor- 
rows" God's Holy Spirit in the Word went like an arrow to his 
heart, showed him as in a glass his real self, brought him to the 
feet of Jesus. And he lived for years to glorify the Saviour 
whom he used to mock. 

Now tell me of the colored man in Acts viii. who was con- 
verted by the same chapter, and went to his far-off home in 
Africa, to tell what a Saviour he had found. 

There was once a young man called Augustine, who was 
turned from being a very filthy sinner into a saint of God by 
one passage of the Word. He was sitting in a garden in Milan 
ir Italy, under a big tree, thinking deeply over his past life. 
When suddenly he heard a voice saying, "Take and read, Take 
and read." He did not know at first what it meant. But at last 
the Spirit of God showed him that the Bible was the Book he 
was to "take and read." He took up his Bible and opened 
it at Romans xiii. 11-14. These four verses changed his whole 
life, and made him one of the greatest Christian men that the 
world ever has seen. 

Does not this remind us of another fig-tree, another man 
rind "this same Jesus" by His Word talking home to his heart. 
The man's name begins with "N" and ends with "L." Find 
the story in the Gospel and tell me what you can about the 
man. 



Lesson XIV 




WE are to talk about Easter today. The 
word means "rising, coming up, getting 
up, springing forth," and as you all 
know we keep the feast in memory of 
the "rising from the dead" of our bles- 
sed Lord Jesus Christ on "the first day 
of the week," or that "first Lord's day" 
so many hundreds of years ago. 

From that time till this "all the world keeps 
Easter Day" in a new way, and with a new mean- 
ing for us who believe in Jesus as the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life. 

The Sea and the Land keep Easter Day, and in 
such a lovely way. Find Psalm xcviii. 8 ; xciii. 3 ; 
and especially read Isaiah lv. 12. 

1. Tell me, too, where it is said: The "valleys 
.... covered with corn shout for joy and sing." 
(2) Where are we told in the Bible of the Great 
Easter Day? (a) of the Earth? (b) of the Sea? 

2. Flowers keep Easter Day. As you look 
upon them in all their beauty at this time in our 
church and homes and enjoy their sweet fragrance, 
tell me if you can : (a) How many different kinds 
of flowers are mentioned in the Bible ; (b) where 
does Jesus take one of them as an object lesson 
for us, and what does He say? 



The birds and beasts in their own way 
And in God's plan keep Easter Day; 
The beasts by night, the birds by day, 
Have each their say. 



Risen 
with 
Healing 
in His 
Wings 




Bible Lamps for Little Feet 51 

(i) Give a -verse about (a) the dove; (b) the eagle; (c) the 
hawk ; (d) the hen ; (e) the pigeon ; (f) the peacock. 

(2) One verse in which (a) the bear ; (b) the lion ; (c) the 
lamb ; are all mentioned together. 

(3) Two verses in Isaiah in which no less than ten animals 
are mentioned, and a little child. 

(4) When shall this wonderful thing take place? 

3. Little children keep Easter Day. (1) Two little boys 
kept the feast as it had never been kept before, one a poor 
widow's son, 910 years before Jesus came ; another the son of 
a great woman, 15 years after; you know them well; tell me 
where their stories are in the Bible. (2) A little girl, twelve 
years old, died and rose again the same day. This is where 
''they laughed Jesus to scorn." Do not be afraid of being 
laughed at. (3) Millions of little boys and girls are keeping 
Easter Day with Jesus "over the river." Give me one passage 
which speaks of what we shall see in the New Jerusalem, about 
the streets being full of boys and girls playing together. One 
more that these "little ones" shall come again "from the land of 
the enemy," and "come again to their own border." Search 
Jeremiah xxxi. and you will find it. 

People often ask : "Shall we know each other on that great 
Easter Day?" Shall we see and know dear father and mother, 
sister and brother, baby boy and girl, whose body we laid to 
rest so long ago, or just the other day? What do you think 
children dear? 

A man called Moses died 1,451 years before Jesus was born. 
God Himself buried him, no one knows where, even to this day. 
Another man called Elijah was carried to heaven in a chariot 
of fire 555 years after, and of course they had never seen each 
other in this world. 896 years after this, when our Lord Jesus 
had come, these two men, Moses who had died, and Elijah who 
had not died, were seen on the top of a high mountain with 
Jesus in glory, talking with Him about His coming death. Now 



52 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



think. There were just six people there : Jesus in the midst, 
Moses, and Elijah, neither of whom had ever seen Jesus or each 
other before in this world, Peter, James and John, three fisher- 
men, who had never been in heaven or paradise, who certainly 
had never seen Moses or Elijah; and yet Peter for one, knew 
them all, for he said to Jesus. "Let us make three tabernacles, 
one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias" (St. Mark 
ix. 5). 

Jesus certainly knew them all. Moses knew Elijah, Elijah 
knew Moses. Peter, and we may assume James and John also, 
knew all the rest, and yet people ask, "Shall we know each other 
there?" 




Lesson XV 




MANY of you have read the story of the 
"Battle above the Clouds," in which 
during the great war between the North 
and the South, over thirty-three years 
ago, brave men on both sides, and even 
brothers, fought for the possession of 
this great mountain rising two thou- 
sand feet above the city, and commanding it. 

I. But just now I am thinking of other "look- 
out mountains" and other fights and other victor- 
ies, of which the story is told us in the Word of 
God, and in which men and women and even boys 
and girls have taken part. I remember the day a 
few years ago when with some dear friends of 
Chattanooga, I stood on the top of "Lookout 
Mountain" and took in the marvelous view, where 
on a clear day one can see portions of seven states, 
and my mind goes back to a wonderful "Lookout 
Mountain" on which a great soldier, saint and lead- 
er of men, stood, to take his last view of this world 
before he went home to God. Tell me : 

i. His name and age. 

The mountain on which he stood. 
The seven states or districts he saw. 
Why he could see so far and so plainly. 
Why he could not go where his eyes went. 
What you know about his burial place. 
Did he ever appear on the earth again? 
Where and with whom? 

II. There is another "Lookout Mountain" 



2. 

3- 
4- 

5- 
6. 

7- 



Mounts 
of Vision 
and 
Victory 




Bible Latmps for Little Feet 55 

which a famous old soldier asked Joshua to give him for an in- 
heritance. Tell me : 

1. His name, which begins with "C." 

2. How old he was when he asked for the mountain. 

3. What he wanted it for. 

4. Why he was so strong at this time of life. 

5. What wonderful thing this "old young" man did when he 
was nearly ninety years of age. 

6. His daughter's name and whom she married. 

III. One more "Lookout Mountain" in the Old Testament. 
It was a mountain which "looked out" over the sea whose 
name begins with "M." 

There was a great crowd on the top. Among them (1) a 
king; (2) a prophet of the Lord; (3) four hundred and fifty 
priests ; (4) four hundred more. Tell me : 

1. The king; his name and character. 

2. The true prophet and the meaning of his name. 

3. What he was doing there that day with the king, the 
priests and the people. 

4. How he left this world at last. 

5. When and where he came back, and who saw him and 
talked with him. 

IV. In the Xew Testament we are told of a wonderful 
"Lookout Mountain," a wonderful vision seen from it, a won- 
derful battle fought on its top, a wonderful victory won. There 
was only one human being there, but thousands of spiritual 
beings looking on, as He fought all alone and won. Tell me : 

1. Where and how often is the story of this, the greatest 
battle ever fought in the world, told us in the Xew Testament? 

2. How long did the battle last? 

3. Why there never was one just like it before or since. 

4. What weapons of war did the Victor use ? 

5. How do we know that we shall win, in our battles with 
the same great enemy? Give me two texts to prove this. 




From Hoffman 



Head of CKrist 



Glory 



Lesson XVI 

''Lord, lift me up and let me stand 
By faith on heaven's table land; 
A higher plane than I have found, 
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground." 

ONE more "Lookout Mountain" 
scene. This time there is no tempta- 
tion, no victory, no fighting, no de- Light 
feat, no slaughter, no death. All is JtJ^2, 
light, glory, victory. 

There are six people visibly pres- 
ent. How many invisible 1 do not 
know, but I should not wonder if "a great multi- 
tude that no man could number" were looking on 
at the wonderful scene. 

i. The center of the group is One whose face 
"did shine as the sun," and has still all the "light 
of the knowledge of the glory of God" centered in 
it, because He is "the brightness of His Father's 
glory and the express image of His Person." You 
all know who He is and I trust many of you dear 
children know Him as your personal Saviour. 

2. Tell me the names of the two men who were 
talking with Him. 

3. Why do you think they were chosen out of 
so many others to be seen with Him now? 

4. The names of the three others and what one 
of them said, because he did not know what to say. 

5. Where does this man, who was with Jesus 
in the glory that day, speak long after in one of 
his letters about it? When he knew what to sav. 



58 Bible La.mps for Little Feet 

6. How did one of the three die for his Master? It is told 
us in the Acts of the Apostles. 

7. One of these three men lived longer than any of the 
other disciples, and wrote a wonderful book of the Bible. Give 
me his name, the name of the book and one beautiful verse from 
the last chapter of it. 

Killing the Dragon 

A little boy, four years old, was very much impressed with 
the story of "St. George and the Dragon," which his mother 
had been reading to him and his sister, and the next day he said 
to his father : 

"Father, I want to be a saint." 

"Very well, John," said his father, "you may be a saint if 
you choose, but you will find it very hard work." 

"I don't mind," replied John. "I want to be a saint and 
fight a dragon. I am sure I would kill one." 

"So you shall, my boy." 

"But when will I be one?" persisted the child. 

"You can begin today," said his father. 

"But where is the dragon?" 

"I'll tell you when he comes out." 

So the boy ran off contentedly to play with his sister. 

In the course of the day some presents came for the two' 
children. John's was a book, and his sister Catherine's was a 
beautiful doll. Now John was too young to care for a book, 
but he dearly loved dolls, and when he found that his sister 
had what he considered a much nicer present than his own, 
he threw himself on the floor in a passion of tears. 

His father, who happened to be there, said quietly, "Now 
John, the dragon is out." 

The child stopped crying, but said nothing. That evening 
however, when he bade his father good-night, he whispered, 
"Papa, I am glad Catherine has the doll. I did kill the dragon !" 



Lesson XVII 




LET us begin our study of the Word of 
God, for our hearts. In a former les- 
son we talked together of the piercing- 
power of the Word of God, upon the 
hearts of men, convincing them of sin, 
and bringing them to God for pardon 
and peace. In between these two 
words comes the cleansing of the heart by the pre- 
cious blood of Jesus. So that pardon, purity, and 
peace, are the three great first things we have from 
God through the cross and death of His Son. 

Here is the way a holy man put it once, more 
than 260 years ago : 



Heart 

Work 

of 

the Word 



Wash, Lord, and purify my heart, 
And make it clean in every part; 
And when 'tis clean, Lord keep it too, 
For that is more than I can do. 



But the Word of God does more than pierce 
and cleanse our hearts. It does more than water 
for the stone covered with mud, washing and 
keeping it clean from all defilement. It softens the 
heart that is hard and stony, makes it warm when 
it is cold, makes it tender when it is harsh, makes 
it sympathetic, when before it did not care for any- 
one but itself. 

1. Find the case of a great king, whose heart 
God softened, towards a man whose name begins 
with "N," and ends with "H," and made him do 
for this man, and his people many things he never 
would have done of himself. 




60 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

2. The name of the prophet who speaks of the "heart of 
flesh," that God will give us instead of our heart of stone. 

3. A judge in the New Testament, whose heart was softened 
by the cry of a poor widow. 

4. A man whose name begins with "P," whom one look of 
Jesus melted into tears. 

5. A woman whose name begins with "L." A heathen 
whose heart the Holy Ghost touched and softened, so that she 
took the ministers home to her house to stay as long as they 
wished. 

6. A slave whose name begins with "O" and ends with "S," 
whose Master's heart was so softened that he took him back to 
his service after he had run away. 

One more blessed thing the Word of God does for our 
hearts. They are naturally small. His Word, and His Spirit 
in His Word, makes our hearts large and generous like His 
own. 

Our hearts are like a shriveled-up kernel of a nut, and so 
dry. God by His Word comes in and makes them big enough 
for Himself to live and walk in. See Psalm cix. 32, it says : 
"I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou shalt 
enlarge my heart," and another has it "when Thou shalt set 
my heart at liberty." 

That is, just as we cannot run far or fast with our bodily 
heart all bound and bandaged up, our lips and finger nails 
getting bluer and bluer all the time, so with our spiritual heart 
tied and bound, we cannot do much or go far for God. 

But when our heart gets larger and free in its action, 
when the blood begins to flow freely, how the blood comes 
rushing to hands and feet, filling every part with tingling joyous 
life and power ! 

1. Now take your Bible and find for me the name of a 
king, to whom it is said God gave this very "largeness of heart." 

2. A great prophet who says that our hearts shall "be en- 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



61 



larged," His name begins with "I," and it is in his 6oth chapter. 

3. A man, who loved money, who made money, had his 
heart enlarged one day by a Word from Jesus, gave up his 
money making, made a big feast for a lot of people, and then 
became a follower of Christ. 

4. Another man who loved money, and was rich, came down 
from a tree, took Jesus into his home and his heart, and offered 
to give back four dollars for every one he had taken wrongly 
from anyone, and to give half of his goods to the poor. 

Tell me all you can about these two men who had a severe 
attack of "enlargement of the heart," and then pray that many 
more may be blessed in the same way. 




Seed 





Lesson XVIII 

"There is springtime in my soul today, 

A carol to my King, 
And Jesus, listening, can hear 
The songs I cannot sing." 

BUT even if you and I cannot sing them 
with our lips, our hearts can make melody 
unto the Lord (Ephesians v. 19). At all 
events, with blue skies over us, warm air 
fanning our cheeks, birds singing carols of 
an< j ^^ praise, grass growing greener each day- 

Soil under our feet, flowers already beginning 

to peep above the ground, and the trees filling up 
with sap, and the buds almost bursting with the 
new life within them, it seems natural that our talk 
this week should be of these things, taken in a 
spiritual way. So with our Bibles open before us, 
and with this prayer in our hearts : "Open Thou 
mine eyes that I may see wondrous things out of 
Thy Law," let us see what God says about this 
lovely season in His Word. Find for me : 

1. The first promise about "seed time" and 
harvest. 

2. How often is this season called "spring" in 
the Bible ? 

3. Who planted the first garden? 

4. How was it watered ? 

5. Where does God say that you and I shall be 
like a watered garden? 

6. Some strange things that happened in gar- 
dens, (a) A single act which has affected the 
whole world, (b) A sorrowful scene which blessed 
the whole world, (c) A grave out of which came life 
for the whole world, (d) A bad king that had a 
good man killed so as to have his piece of land for 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 63 

a "garden of herbs." (e) Another bad king that was buried in 
the garden of his own house. 

7. Find some of the following fruits that grow in Bible gar- 
dens : (a) Nuts, (b) Cucumbers. 

Flowers : (a) Lilies, (b) Roses. 
Trees : (a) Cedars, (b) Fir trees, (c) Chestnut. 
Jesus was often called the carpenter's Son. Was He ever 
mistaken for a gardener ? Where and by whom ? 

8. The Bible speaks of some very strange seeds sown in 
different kinds of soil. Tell me. where : (a) Wind is said to be 
sown, (b) Iniquity is said to be sown, (c) Discord and strife. 
And on the other hand: (d) Light for the righteous, (e) Glad- 
ness for the upright in heart. 

Which does Jesus say is "The least of all seeds." And 
where does He compare the strongest thing in the world to it? 

Our Lord met a man once in great trouble, who had so 
much of this wonderful seed in his garden that Jesus said He 
had not seen anything like it "No, not in Israel." Where is 
the story of this man told, and what was it all about? There 
was a woman too in terrible sorrow about her child, who had 
so much of this wonderful seed sown in her heart, that the ice 
and snow and chilling wind of (a) the silence, (b) the terrible 
words of the Master, could not freeze up. Find the wonderful 
story for me. 

9. There are two kinds of children in the Bible, who are 
called seeds. Give chapter and verse. 

10. Four kinds of soil. 

11. Two great sowers. Tell me their names, and two men, 
one of whom gave his heart for a garden to the first sower, and 
the other for a seed plant for the second, to help you, see (St. 
John xiii. 2 etc.). 

What strange roots are sometimes found in these Bible 
gardens! Far back in Deuteronomy, 1451 years before Christ 
came, we read of a "root that beareth gall and wormwood." 



64 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



And you know it was of this root Jesus tasted on the cross, 
for you and me. (See St. Matt, xxvii. 34.) What do you think 
the "root of bitterness*' (Heb. xii. 15) means? (See chapter 
iii. 12 and Deuteronomy xxix. 18.). And "the root of all evil." 
Who said that? And tell me of a man in the Old Testament 
whose name begins with "G," and one in the Xew Testament 
whose name begins with "J," who were examples of it. 

From roots come the blades cutting their way like little 
knives up through the soil into the sunlight, reminding us that 
we too must have "point" and "push" in our Christian lives 
if we are ever to get on and up, or, as we sometimes call 
them, "spears" or "spires" of grass "fighting" and "pointing" 
the way to heaven. And though sometimes cut down, and 
cut back by sorrow and disappointment, yet springing up again 
all the stronger and healthier for our very pain. There is a 
beautiful verse in the 72d Psalm about "mown grass," and sev- 
eral very old versions translate "mown grass," "a fleece of wool." 
I wonder why? Perhaps you can get mamma or papa to tell 
you why a fleece of wool is like "mown grass." And then per- 
haps you will see a new meaning in that beautiful passage in 
Isaiah liii. 7, "A sheep before her shearers is dumb." 




Lesson XIX 




OUR talk today is to be of "Stones." We 
walk on them in the streets, wagons 
rattle over them in the roads, we put 
up big buildings with them, we play 
with them in the shape of marbles, we 
polish them till they shine like ivory 
for our fire places and mantle pieces in 
our living rooms, and when we die people put 
stones over our graves and write things on them 
about us called "epitaphs;" and sometimes, we are 
told, our very bodies turn to stone after death, and 
remain for ages without decay. 

Now we shall find our Bibles full of beautiful 
illustrations of the different kinds of stones we 
meet with as we go through life. 

I. Stepping Stones. Have you ever tried when 
in the country' in the summer to cross a stream or 
muddy place on stepping stones ? Or to help a lit- 
tle baby brother or sister over? If you have you 
will know what "picking your steps" means. For 
one false step may plunge you into the water or 
the mud. "See then that ye walk circumspectly, 
not as fools, but as wise." Who says that, and 
where, and what do you think "circumspectly" 
means ? 

"Let him that thinketh he standeth." Finish 
the verse for me and tell me of some people in the 
Bible who forgot the last part. 

But stepping stones are used in the city as well 
as in the country. Not to carry us across the 



Stones, 
Stepping 
and 
Others 



66 Bible Latmps for Little Feet 

streams or muddy places, but up from the street to our doors 
and in our houses from one floor to another. Stairs are just 
stepping stones, and as we go up and down upon them many 
beautiful words and promises of God come to us. 

"Line upon line," etc. Tell me the man who built those 
stairs for his children to walk upon. (2) Who was it said : 
"There is but a step between me and death"? (3) Where are 
"winding stairs" mentioned in the Bible? (4) A strange kind 
of carpet they made for a new king on the "top of the stairs"? 
(5) A man of God in a hard place "stood on the stairs and 
beckoned with his hand to the people"? (6) Who says our 
"steps are ordered by the Lord," and that God is able to keep 
us from "falling," or even "stumbling"? (7) Which are the 
longest stairs mentioned in the Bible, and where does Jesus 
lefer to it? 

II. "Stumbling Stones." Who was it put a big stone of this 
kind in front of God's ancient people, and how many fell over 
it and were killed? 

In the Bible "stumbling block" and "offense" mean the 
same thing. 

(1) Where did Jesus call one of His disciples "Satan" be- 
cause he was a "stumbling block" to Him? (2) What does 
Solomon say about "a brother offended"? (3) What does our 
Master say about offending "little ones"? (4) When does He 
say all the "stumbling stones" will be gathered out of His king- 
dom? (5) How far on can we get in this world about "of- 
fenses"? A verse in the 119th Psalm will help you. 

III. "Millstones." A man whose name begins with "A" 
was killed by a piece of a millstone thrown by a woman. When 
and where? (2) Who worked most at the millstones in the 
East? What were they like and how did they use them? (3) 
What will some of the women be doing when the Lord returns ? 
Millstones are suggestive of daily work for daily food. 

There is another kind of stone God mentions in His Word as a 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 67 

IV. "Help" to us in our journey through the world. 

(i) 1 141 years before Jesus came, a "help stone" was put 
up in memory of a great victory won. Find the place and give 
the Bible name for it. (2) I think St. Paul was counting some 
of these "mile stones" in Acts xxvi. 22. Find the verse, and 
if you can, some of the places in his life where he obtained help 
from God. 

V. You all know the name of the shepherd lad who killed 
the great giant. The story says, "he chose him five smooth 
stones out of the brook." I would like you to find five smooth 
stones of promise in your Bibles, which if you always carry in 
the little bag of faith and put them one by one in the sling of 
prayer, will make you real "giant killers," and give you victory 
in every battle. Put them in this way, taking a promise begin- 
ning with the letters as they come. 

1. F. 

2. A. 

3- I- 

4. T. 
5- H. 

And see what a beautiful shield they form to cover you in ev- 
ery attack of the enemy. 




Lesson XX 




OUR last week's talk was upon "stones," 
"stepping," i. Over. 2. Up; "stumbling" 
or "stones of offense." Millstones ; mile- 
stones and the five smooth stones of the 
brook, used by the shepherd boy. There 
is so much more in the Bible about 
"stones," that is beautiful and helpful to 
us children big and little, that I would like to have 
one more talk with you about them. 

I. Outside of the Bible, where did you ever hear 
of a "Living Stone?" A stone really alive, breath- 
ing, speaking and moving about in the world. You 
know the man's name who says in one of his let- 
ters : "Ye then as lively or living stones are built 
up a spiritual house." 

Is it not odd that this man had a name given 
him by Jesus which means "rock," and after his 
conversion and filling with the Holy Spirit, what a 
lively stone he was ! 

If you wish to know how a living stone can talk 
read Acts ii. 14-37. 

Then if you would see this living stone, not 
only walking, but making someone else who was 
lame from his birth, walk and leap and praise God, 
look at Acts iii. 1-16. 

You have seen stones in houses and prisons, in 
the walks and floors and ceilings. But did you 
ever hear of a stone praying, and praying so 
mightily that the house was shaken? 

Find the passage, and tell me the names of two 



Living 
Stones 




70 Bible L^mps for Little Feet 

at least of the "living stones" that were there that day. 

Then did you ever hear of a "stone" that was taken to pris- 
on once, but in the middle of the night got up by. the power of 
God and walked out, and went to a prayer-meeting? 

Tell me where that strange, but true story is found, and the 
name of the girl who let the "living stone" in, after knocking 
at the gate. Perhaps it will help you if I ask you the difference 
between a statue and a lively or living stone. 

Oliver Cromwell was in a great church in England one day 
and looking around he saw twelve of these "statues," made not 
of stone, but of silver, in niches or little hollows in the walls. 
He asked who they were. The answer was : "The twelve apos- 
tles, sir." "Take them down," said Cromwell, "melt them down ; 
coin them into money, and send them out to do some good in 
the world." 

Perhaps you have heard what Mr. Moody said : That the 
only monument he wanted to his memory after he was dead 
was a monument on two legs going about the country preach- 
ing the Gospel. Surely that is just what God wants each 
one of us to be. Living, moving, speaking, working stones. 

Within the last hundred years, God has had in the mission 
field some of the lively stones, doing wonderful things for Him. 
A shoemaker whose name begins with "C" and ends with "Y," 
went all the way to India, and left God's mark forever on that 
land. Tell me all you can about him. 

China had a "living stone" whose name begins with "M" 
and ends with "N" whose name and work will never be for- 
gotten there, or in heaven. 

Another man whose name begins with "M" and ends with 
"T," a Scotchman, went to dark Africa and gave the light of 
God to thousands sitting in the valley of the shadow of death. 
He had a son-in-law, a man even more wonderful than he, 
whose name begins with "L" and ends with "N." Tell me 
his name, read the story of his life and his strange death. 




Lesson XXI 

IT IS only a step in thought from "liv- 
ing stones" to 

I. "Precious Stones." 

What talks and talks we could have Precious 

on this one theme. I. Tell me the name Stones 

of the man who wore the wonderful 

breast-plates with the precious stones. 

in it, when he ministered before the Lord. 2. Find 

the passage in Exodus which describes it all. 

3. The number and names of the beautiful stones. 

4. What names were engraven on the stones? 

5. What does it all mean for us and Jesus as our 
Great High Priest? 6. Where does it say, "He 
ever liveth to make intercession for us"? 
7. Where does St. Paul say, "I have you in my 
heart"? 8. There is a beautiful word in Isaiah 
lxii. 6, about this. It is called in the margin "re- 
membrancers," that is, people who keep God in 
mind of His troubled ones, and His troubled ones 
in mind of Him. Pray to be one of God's re- 
membrancers." 

II. "Windows of agate." 

Find the passage in Isaiah where this expres- 
sion occurs, and tell me what you think these agate 
windows mean, especially for people in great trou- 
ble and sorrow. 

III. "Jewels." Where are God's people called 
by this name, and when is He going to make them 
up ? 

Ask Mamma and Papa to tell you what the 



72 Bible La.mps for Little Feet 

word for "jewels" is in the revised version, and then find how 
many times the word "peculiar" is used in the Bible. 

"Little children, little children, 

That love their Redeemer, 
Are His jewels, precious jewels. 

His loved and His own. 
Like the stars of the morning 
His bright crown adorning, 
They shall shine in their beauty. 

Bright gems for His crown." 

IV. "One Pearl of great price." Who said that, and what 
do you think it means ? "Every several gate was of one pearl" ? 
Where in the Bible is that said? And tell me your idea about 
it. And one last question. 

V. "A white stone." I wonder what that means ? Find 
out all you can about it, and send me word as soon as possible. 

May God make us all He means by these beautiful pictures 
of His precious things. And when the roll is called up yonder, 
may we be there, and in our place as part of His jewels, whether 
in His crown or on His breast plate. Only near, and part of 
Himself. 

A Streak of Sunshine 

"Well, grandma," said a little boy resting his elbow on the 
old lady's stuffed arm chair, "what have you been doing all day 
all by yourself at the window?" 

"All I could," cheerfully answered grandma; "I have read 
a little, and prayed a good deal, and then looked at the people. 
There is one little girl I have learned to watch for. She 
has sunny brown hair, her brown eyes have the same sunny 
look in them, and I wonder every day what makes her so bright. 
Oh, here she comes now." 

"That girl w T ith the brown apron on?" he cried. "Why, I 
know her. That's Susie Moore, and she has a dreadful hard 
time, grandma." "Has she?" said grandma. "Oh! little boy, 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



73 



wouldn't you give anything to know where she gets all that 
brightness from, then?" 

"I'll ask her," and to grandma's surprise, he lifted the win- 
dow and called Susie. "Oh, Susie come up here a minute, 
grandma wants to see you." 

The brown eyes opened wide in surprise, but the little maid 
turned at once and came in. "Grandma wants to know, Susie 
Moore," said the boy, "what makes you look so bright all the 
time !" 

"Why, I have to," said Susie, "you see, papa has been sick 
a long while, and mamma's tired out with nursing, and baby 
is cross with teething, and if I didn't be bright, who would 
be?" 

"Yes, yes, I see," said dear old grandma, putting her arms 
around this streak of sunshine, "that's God's reason for things ; 
they are because somebody needs them. Shine on, little sun." 
There could not be a better reason for shining than because 
it is dark at home. 




Lesson XXII 




I. WHERE is the word "famine" first 
mentioned in the Bible, and what conn- 
try suffered from it ? 

2. Give the date of the second famine 
in the same land, and the comforting- 
promise God gave to. one of His children 
in passing through it. 

3. Who dreamed of a coming famine, and what 
man did God raise up to provide for it in time ? 

4. "The dream was doubled twice" the Bible 
says. Why does God say things to us twice, and 
now and then three times ? 

5. A hungry man on the top of a house pray- 
ing saw a wonderful thing come down from hea- 
ven. The Bible says : "This was done thrice and 
the vessel was received up again into heaven." 
Who was the man and what did he see ? 

6. A sleeping boy that God called three times, 
because He had something very important to tell 
him? 

7. We are told in Genesis that "Unto Joseph 
were born two sons before the years of famine 
came." Tell me the boys' names and the beauti- 
ful meaning of them. 

8. Was there ever a famine "over all the face of 
the earth" at once, and where did the people of all 
countries go to buy corn?" 

9. One of the most beautiful books in the Old 
Testament, only four chapters in it, is the storv of 
a famine. Give the names of three women who 



Famine 
and 

Famishing 
Ones 




76 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

started for home after it was over, and the two who went all the 
way. 

10. "There was a famine in the days of David" (B.C. 1021). 
God said there was a reason for it. Tell me what it was. 

11. "There was a sore famine in Samaria" once. Tell me 
the name of the man who feared the Lord and fed the starv- 
ing prophets with bread and water. Where does Jesus speak 
of this famine, 936 years afterwards? 

12. Fourteen years later, B.C. 892, there was another terri- 
ble famine in Samaria. Tell me what yon know of the four 
leprous men who brought good news to the starving city. 

13. A little boy, a famine sufferer, a widow's only child, 
fell sick and died (B.C. 910). A man of God, to whom the moth- 
el was kind, raised him up. 

Tell me about him and another little boy, who died from 
the heat in the harvest field and was also raised to life by a 
prophet of the Lord. 

Give me a promise from Job, chapter five, which speaks of : 

14. "Six and seven troubles." 

15. "In famine," etc. 

16. Of "laughing at two things about which most people 
cry." 

17. Of coming to our end here "like a shock of corn." 
"Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible 

famine" was written 588 years before Jesus came, by a man 
whose name begins with "J." 

18. Find the passage in his writings for me. 

19. Where does God speak in His Word of a "famine not 
of bread" but of something worse ? 

20. Where does St. Paul speak of "famine" as one of the 
things which cannot separate us from the love of Christ? 

21. Find where Jesus speaks of these awful "famines and 
pestilences" as one of the signs of the end. 

And then to comfort you after all this sad picture of pain 



Bible LaLmps for Little Feet 77 

and sorrow, read the last five verses of the seventh chapter of 
Revelation, and think how blessed it will be when the sixteenth 
verse will be fulfilled and you and I will be with them, and with 
all our loved ones with God forever. 

Here is a little message in verse for the sick ones : 

Thou to whom the sick and dying 

Ever came, nor came in vain, 
Still with healing words replying. 

To the wearied cry of pain. 
Hear us, Jesus, as we meet, 
Suppliants at Thy mercy seat. 

So may sickness, sin and sadness 

To Thy healing virtue jdeld, 
Till the sick and sad, in gladness, 

Rescued, ransomed, cleansed, healed. 
One in Three together meet, 
Resting in Thy presence sweet. 

Still the weary, sick and dying, 

Need a brother's, sister's care. 
On Thy higher help relying, 

May we now their burden share. 




Lesson XXIII 



Honey 

in 

the Rock 





O 



SOME of our late talks have been on 
hard things, like stones, famine, sick- 
ness, and I hope we are thinking and 
praying more than ever for those ev- 
erywhere who are suffering so terribly, 
and need all the help we can give them. 
Today I want to give you the bright side 
to those dark pictures and show you from the Word 
of God how He can make the hard place and the 
hard thing easy; how He loves to bring "light 
out of darkness" for us, and out of even death, 
life and joyful service. 

1. One day, long, long ago, in a country far 
away, 100,000 men, besides women and children, 
were very thirsty. "There was no water for the 
people to drink." 

God gave them water out of one of the strang- 
est cups in the world. Its name begins with "R," 
and the place with "H." The time was nearly 3,- 
500 years ago. Find all you can about it for me. 

2. Where does God say in one verse we may 
have both "honey and oil" out of the two hardest 
things in the world? 

3. What does He promise to feed us with if 
we will be patient and faithful in hard places ? The 
last verse of Psalm lxxxi. will help you. 

4. Find the Psalm and verse in which God says 
two wonderful things about "rock and flint." 

5. Where does the strongest bird build its nest, 



Bible Latrnps for Little Feet 79 

and teach its little ones to fly? Give me a passage from Num- 
bers, and one -from Deuteronomy about it. 

6. A great friend of David's, when a young man, and whose 
name begins with "J," was once in a place where there was "a 
sharp rock on the one side and a sharp rock on the other side." 
Find the passage and see what God can do for us and through 
us, and some little boy with us, in a hard place like that. 

7. The hot and trying days are already with us, and many 
more must come before the Summer is over. 

(a) Find a verse which speaks of "the shadow of a great 
Rock in a weary land." 

(b) Another which speaks of "entering into the Rock and 
hiding ourselves." 

(c) A Rock that moved and followed people, to give them 
drink when thirsty. 

(d) Where does Isaiah say : "Let the inhabitants of the Rock 
sing, let them shout," etc. ? 

But God promises us not only deliverance, shelter and song 
in hard places, but sweetness and great peace, where other peo- 
ple find only biterness and unrest. 

8. There is a strange story that the boys will enjoy, about 
Samson and the "carcass of the lion." And 

9. A riddle which runs : 

"Out of the eater came forth meat, 
And out of the strong came forth sweetness." 

It took those who first heard it three days to guess it. You 
can find the answer in your Bibles sooner than that, and per- 
haps see a spiritual meaning in it also. 

10. Who says : (a) "Eat thou honey because it is good," and 
also says : 

(b) "It is not good to eat much honey"? 

Tell me what you think honey means in the first passage, 
and then what it means in the second. 



80 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

11. The people had been fighting hard at a place called 
"Beth Aven," "House of Vanity, or Idols." They found honey 
on the ground, but feared to touch it. Why? Who touched 
it with a rod and ate it and "his eyes were enlightened?" 

12. There is a strange, sad story in Jeremiah xli. about ten 
men who were saved from death because they had "treasures 
of wheat and of barley, and of oil, and of honey in the field." 

13. Jesus says : "They gave Me gall to eat, and when I was 
thirsty they gave Me vinegar to drink." 

But once at least, after all the bitterness of death was past, 
"He ate a piece of a broiled fish and of an honey comb." Find 
the passage, and tell me the name of one of the little dinner 
party. 

14. Tell me where and when Jesus gave the very "last sup- 
per" to His dear ones. There were only two things on the table 
(strange table) to eat. What was there to drink, and where did 
they get it ? 

15. Jesus says that after all the sorrow, bitterness and fail- 
ure of this life is over, we who are His and have been "faithful 
unto death," or "until He comes," shall "eat and drink at My 
table in My kingdom." 

(a) Find the passage. 

(b) A passage telling where some of the guests are to come 
from. 

(c) Three men who are to be at the table. Shall you? 



It is not far from Jesus; 

If you only knew how near, 
You would reach Him in a moment, 

And banish all your fear. 

And the very best about it is, 
He's always close at hand, 

And always listens to you, 
And always understands. 



Lesson XXIV 




THE "outdoor" season has come. Now, 
and for two or three months, everyone 
that can, will try to get "out of doors" 
in some way. Out of school, out of the 
store, the shop, the home, away, away 
somewhere for a change of some kind. 
Tired mothers with the babies on the 
street cars. Groups of happy children marching 
off to the parks, with bands and flowers and May 
Oueens. Old men and women — high and low, rich 
and poor, all try in one way or another to get a 
change from land to water, or from water to land. 
Those who live at the seaside try to get away to 
the mountains ; and those in the mountains seek 
the sea ; while thousands who cannot get away at 



all, 



their 



by going up through the 



skylight and sitting on the roof in the cool of the 
day, or sit in the fire escapes, and let the panting 
babies get what air they can, in these strange cage- 
like things through which I have so often seen 
them looking and panting like little hot and tired 
birds. Let our talk and thought today be of : 

"Open doors," and how you and I may enter 
them, even if we never leave the hot city during 
the Summer. 

I. "Open doors" above us, in our houses and in 
heaven, through which we can always go by night 
and by day, in Summer and Winter, and see and 
hear and receive wonderful things from God. 

(i) How often does the Bible speak of doors 
in heaven, open and shut? 



Open 
Doors 




82 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

(2) Of the windows of heaven? 

(3) Eight people in a strange kind of boat had reason to 
remember the opening and the shutting of the windows of hea- 
ven. Tell me some of their names and when they sailed away 
together. 

(4) Write out in full and learn that beautiful passage in Mal- 
achi, about "the windows of heaven." 

(5) How often are we told the "heavens were opened" for 
Jesus ? 

(6) Tell me some of the things He saw and heard as He 
looked up into the open heaven. 

(7) Three men on earth once saw two men from heaven 
through that "open door." Give me their names and the pas- 
sage. 

(8) Where and when did Jesus pass through this "open 
door" back to heaven? 

(9) What strange words did St. Paul hear through this 
"open door" on the way to Damascus? 

(10) Peter, too, heard something that puzzled him as he 
looked up into this "open door." (See Acts x.). 

(11) St. John in the last book of the Bible said and heard 
most wonderful things through this "open door." Tell me three 
of these. 

A holy man once said : "All the doors of heaven are open to 
the man that prays." 

(12) Tell me the name of the one man in the Bible whose 
name begins with "E," who locked and unlocked these doors 
of heaven with the key of prayer ? 

II. The most important door on earth and the hardest to 
get open, is made not of wood or iron, but of flesh. Each of us 
is a little house, and the door is called our heart, because, until 
it is opened, everything else is shut, or might as well be. 
again, and stands outside, knocking, knocking, oh, so patient- 
ly, waiting sometimes for years for us to open and let Him in. 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 83 

Find the verse in Revelation iii. which gives ns the touch- 
ing picture of this patient, pleading Saviour at our heart's door, 
and then ask yourself, Have I let Him in ? or, Is my heart-door 
still closed? And then remember that other sad verse in St. 
Matthew xxv., "And the door was shut." Tell me what door 
this is, and why those who knocked at it failed to enter in. 
Remember always, dear children, that the only closed door in all 
the world is our heart, and when Jesus gets into and fills it with 
Himself, everything else in our lives will be right. 

III. Then the third kind of door I wish to speak of will be 
always open to you. I mean the door of Opportunity. 

How busy and blessed our lives would be if we could only 
see these "open doors" all around, every day. 

Doors into homes, into hearts, into consciences, into the 
sorrows and sufferings of others. Into the big houses of the 
rich sometimes, and into the little houses of the poor always. 

There is only space today to tell you of two or three of these 
"open doors" which Jesus always found open, and never failed 
to enter when He was here on earth. 

(i) One day He was tired and thirsty, and perhaps did not 
feel like talking to any one. But an empty watering pot on a 
woman's shoulder was the "open door" to her heart. You 
know the story well. Give the chapter and verses. 

(2) Another day Jesus was at a dinner party, and an ala- 
baster box opened the way to a poor, sinful human heart, which 
He filled with something better even than the precious ointment 
of the box. 

Find the story, and give three other places where a similar 
thing is told. 

(3) Once more, on the last sad day of His life, Jesus found 
His way to the heart of a dying man. He took him home 
with Him to Paradise that very day. 

In your dying hour, children, try by a look or a word to win 
a soul, and vou will not be lonelv on vour way home to God. 




Sa-ilors' a.r\d Soldiers' Monument, Indianapolis 



Lesson XXV 




WHERE do you think I was a short time 
ago? On the top of a stone pillar. 
Higher than Niagara Falls, 284 feet in 
height from the street to the top of the 
statue, and the pillar was hollow, with 
an elevator inside, up which we went, 
and then up again three flights of stairs 
and then out on a little balcony, and then — just 
imagine the view? At our feet lay the beautiful 
city of Indianapolis, with its 200,000 inhabitants, 
stretching for miles in every direction, with its 
splendid buildings, its beautiful parks, lovely trees 
of shade and flower, its exquisitely clean streets, 
and beautifully kept lawns, and the people looking 
so small, moving about like boys and girls, like 
babies almost, at play. And then lifting up our 
eyes we looked literally, north and south and east 
and west, and took a vision of beauty extending 
for forty-five miles, like one vast garden, watered 
by the Lord, reminding one of Eden before the 
curse came. I think I shall never forget the glory 
and beauty of that scene, or the wonderful monu- 
ment on which I stood, admitted to be the grand- 
est work of art of its kind in the world. 

It was erected to glorify the heroic epoch of the 
Republic, and the valor and fortitude of Indianap- 
olis' soldiers and sailors in the war of the Rebel- 
lion. 

It stands in the very centre of the city, and at 
the entrance facing South, is this inscription: 



Silent 
Victors 




86 Bible Letmps for Little Feet 

"To Indiana's Silent Victors." 

As I looked at this wonderful specimen of man's art and 
handiwork, I thought of you, my beloved children, of another 
monument and another inscription, built and written upon, not 
by man, but by God, and how you and I will stand bye and bye 
in the center of the City of God, pillars in the Temple, with 
His name written upon our foreheads, and the name of the city 
of our God, and His new name. (See Revelation iii. 12). 

I thought of the millions of God's "silent victors," who "ov- 
ercame" in a war greater than the great Civil War ; who fought 
the fight and won the victory, and passed over and are waiting 
for their crowns till we join them, or Jesus comes to take us to 
meet Him in the air. 

I thought, too, of us, as living, moving, breathing, shining, 
and singing monuments, not standing in one spot in the center 
of the New Jerusalem, but going up and down, in and out, 
through its length and breadth and height, carrying with us 
at every step "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
in the face of Jesus Christ" (II. Cor. iv. 6) in our glorified and 
transfigured faces and lives. 

Then I thought of the difference between the inscriptions 
engraved on the monuments and the grave stones erected by 
man, and those written and engraved upon us by "the finger 
of God." As we pass through a cemetery and read the beauti- 
ful and tender words on the headstones, we cannot always be 
sure that they are perfectly truthful, or that they represent 
the real character of the person whose body is lying beneath. 

You remember the story of the little boy, who, as his father 
was showing him through a cemetery and pointing out the 
inscriptions on the stones, said : "Papa, where are all the bad 
people buried?" But in our beautiful "cemetery," or sleeping 
place of the dead who have died in the Lord, there is not a false 
inscription, not an untrue word, and you may be sure that the 
epitaph which the Bible gives is both "true and just." 



Bible LaLmps for Little Feet 87 

Now to prove this I want you to take a little walk with 
me through ,the Bible grounds, and see what God says about 
some of His "silent victors," who fought a good fight, who 
have finished their course, and kept the faith, and for whom 
He has a crown of righteousness laid up in heaven. 

1. Who was that "silent victor" of whom God says: "He 
was 'righteous,' and being dead, He yet speaketh"? 

2. A "silent victor" whom God took home one day in a 
strange way, and whose inscription is, "He pleased God." 

3. A man whom nearly every one in his day thought a fool, 
but of whom God says, (a) He found grace in the eyves of the 
Lord, (b) He was a just man. (c) He walked with God. 

4. Who was that "silent victor" who fought so many battles 
of faith that he has been called the "Father of the Faithful," 
and "the father of us all"? 

5. A poor slave boy, on whose monument God has written, 
"There arose not a prophet like him, whom the Lord knew face 
to face." 

6. Another boy who was put in jail and kept there unjustly, 
and whom his own family did not appreciate, but God says of 
him : (a) "Blesed of the Lord be his land." (b) "He is a fruitful 
bough by a well." (c) "The arms of his hands were made strong 
by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." 

7. A man of whom a woman said before he died : "Behold a 
holy man of God which passeth by us continually. Who 
was it? Would not that be a lovely living epitaph to have writ- 
ten upon us by those who know us well, before we die, as well 
as after? 

8. God's man asked a troubled woman once, "Is it well with 
the child?" and she said, "It is well." Find the story. What 
a word of comfort for broken-hearted fathers and mothers, 
when God writes that on the tombstone over the little grave in 
the cemetery : — "It is well with the child." 

9. Jesus wrote some beautiful inscriptions for the lives and 



88 



Bible LaLmps for Little Feet 

Tell me which of 



deaths of those who loved and served Him. 
them you thing the most beautiful. 

(a) "Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be 
taken away from her." 

(b) "She hath done what she could." 

(c) "This that she hath done shall be spoken of for a me- 
morial of her." What had she done ? 





Ha. rids 



Lesson XXVI 

THIS will be a short and easy lesson, 
just a few answers to some of the 
questions in our past lessons by a 
little boy. It will rest you to look Clean 
them up, and in doing so you will 
be sure to find some things you 
were not looking for. 
The first question, what Job said about snow, 
water and clean hands, may be found in Job ix. 30. 
May be found about clean hands, and a pure heart 
in Psalms xxiv. 4. Holy hands without wrath is 
told about in Timothy ii. 8. 

The man that washed his hand in water, but 
could not make them clean because his soul was 
dirty, is Pilate, may be found in Matt, xxxvii. 24. 
The woman whose hands used a hammer wtih ter- 
rible effect Was Jael, may be found in Judges iv. 21. 
The witherd hand made whole again by the Word of 
the King of kings, may be found in Matt. xii. 10. A 
tired hand that touched the hem of a garment with 
wonderful results was a woman, may be found in 
Mark v. 27-35. Dead hands and bound, made alive 
and free, was Lazarus raised from the tomb, which 
may be found in John xi. 43. The girl that Jesus 
took by the hand, may be found in Matt. ix. 25. 
The boy He took by the hand, may be found in St. 
Mark ix. 27. The blind man that Jesus healed, 
may be found in Mark ix. 26, 27. The hand that 
holds seven stars, may be found in Revelation i. 
16. The man whose mother put a strange kind 



90 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



of kid glove on his hand to deceive his old father was Jacob de- 
ceiving his father. 

The lamp-lighter whose name began with "S," was Samuel, 
the old man to whom he showed a bright light was Eli, may 
be found in I. Sam. iii. The man whose name begins with 
"P," that gave not only light, but strength by a Word from 
the mouth of God to a poor man was Paul, may be found in 
Acts xiii. 6-14. The man whose name began with "B," was 
Balaam; the wonderful words he said, but used them wrongly, 
and died a sad death, may be found in Numbers xxiii. 10. The 
man whose name begins with "A," was Aaron, Exodus xxviii. 
The girl that carried the light to a dark place, the man she sav- 
ed was Naaman, II. Kings v. 2, 3. 



Lesson XXVII 




TODAY we must gather up the threads 
of some of our past lessons, and 
we will give the answers to the questions 
already asked : 

i. ''Seed time and harvest" are first 
mentioned in Genesis viii. 22. 

2. "Spring" as a season is mentioned 
only onee, viz. : in Ezekiel xvii. 9. But the beauti- 
ful expression : "The spring of the day" is found 
in I. Sam. ix. 26, where it is said: "They arose ear- 
ly and it came to pass about "the spring of the 
day" that Samuel called Saul to the top of the 
house. 

3. The first garden was planted by God Him- 
self. (See Genesis ii. 8.) 

4. It was watered by a mist that went up from 
the earth (verse 6). 

5. God compares His people to "a watered gar- 
den" in Isaiah lviii. 11. The whole verse is very 
beautiful and comforting. Read it and pray that 
God will make it true of you and me. 

6. Some of the strange things that happened 
in gardens : (1) In a garden man became a child 
of sin and toil and shame (see Genesis iii. 17 etc.). 
(2) In a garden Jesus' tears blest the world for 
endless years (see Matthew xxvi. 26-42, and He- 
brews v. 7). (3) In a garden Jesus rose triumph- 
ant over all His foes (St. John xix. 41, 42 and Ro- 
mans vi. 9). (4) A garden twixt Ahab and Naboth 
made strife. An evil king's will cost a good man 



Stones 
and 
Other 
Things 



92 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

his life (I. Kings xxi. 1-14). (5) "Manasseh in a garden slept, 
and a few, if any, o'er him wept" (II. Kings xxi. 18). 

7. (1) "Nuts" will be found in Genesis xliii. 11, and Canti- 
cles vi. 11. (2) "Cucumbers" in Numbers xi. 5; and Isaiah i. 8; 
(3) "Lilies" in Canticles ii. 1 and 2; ii. 16, and Hosea xiv. 5, 1 ; 
Kings vii. 26; Matthew vi. 28. (4) "Roses" in Canticles ii. 1, 
and Isaiah xxxv. I. (5) "Cedars" in Psalm xxix. 5, and many 
other places. (6) "Fir trees" in that beautiful place in Isaiah 
Jv. 13, and many more. (7) "Chestnut" in Genesis xxx. 37, and 
Ezekiel xxxi. 8. 

8. Jesus was mistaken for a "gardener" by Mary Magada- 
lene on the first Easter morning (St. John xx. 15). 

9. (1) "They have sown the wind" is found in Hosea viii. 
7. (2) "Iniquity," "discord," "strife," are said to be sown in 
Proverbs xxii. 8 ; vi. 19 ; xvi. 28 ; and on the other hand, "light 
and gladness" in Psalm xcvii. 11. (3) Jesus calls "mustard" the 
least of all the seeds in Matthew xiii. 32 ; and in the same Gos- 
pel, chapter xvii. 20, He compares "faith" to it. (4) "No not in 
Israel" in St. Matthew viii. 10, are Jesus' words about the great 
faith of the centurion. (5) "O woman, great is thy faith," in 
St. Matthew xv. 28, will give you the touching story of the 
heathen mother pleading with Jesus for her child. 

10. (1) The two kinds of children called "seed" are : "The 
children of the kingdom, and the children of the wicked one," 
in St. Matthew xiii. 38. (2) "Four kinds of soil" are men- 
tioned in the same chapter, verses 4-8. (3) The two great 
"sowers" are Jesus and the devil (verses 37 and 39). (4) Peter 
gave his heart for a garden to the one, and Judas to the other 
(See St. John i. 41 and 42, and xiii. 2, etc.). (5) Roots of "gall," 
"wormwood," "bitternes," "of all evil," will be found in Deu- 
teronomy xxix. 18; Heb. xii. 15; I. Tim. vi. 10. (6) The man 
in the Old Testament who had the "root of all evil" in him was 
"Gehazi," the servant of Elisha (II. Kings v. 20-27). And in 
the New Testament, Judas who was a thief and carried the 



Bible Latmps for Little Feet 93 

bag (St. John xii. 6), was a sad example of it. Now some of 
the answers -to the questions about "stones." 

(i) St. Paul in Eph. v. 15, tells us to walk "circumspectly," 
that is, with our eyes about us, as well as in front. 

(2) "Let him that thinketh," etc., is in I. Corinthians x. 12, 
and Peter, Ananias and Sapphira, Demas (II. Timothy iv. 10), 
and many others, forgot the warning: "Take heed lest he fall." 

(3) Isaiah was the man of God who built the "line upon 
line, precept upon precept, here a little, and there a little." 
Stairs for his weak children to climb (See Isaiah xxviii. 10, etc.). 

(4) David said to Jonathan, "There is but a step between 
me and death." 

(5) "Winding stairs" are mentioned in I. Kings vi. 8; and 

(6) The strange carpet on the "top of the stairs" was made 
up of the garments of the friends of Jehu, which they spread 
under him that day (B.C. 884) when they blew with trumpets 
saying, "Jehu is king" (II. Kings ix. 13). 

(7) Paul was the man of God who "stood on the stairs and 
beckoned with his hand to the people" in Acts xxi. 40. 

(8) David says in Psalm xxxvii. 23, The "steps" of a good 
man are ordered by the Lord; and 

(9) Jude says (verse 24), that God is able to keep you from 
"falling" (revised version, "stumbling"). 

But we must leave the rest of the answers to another time 
and say a word before we close, of thanksgiving to God, and 
praise to our dear children who are taking such real interest 
in answering the questions. 




Lesson XXVIII 




FIRST today we will gather up the 
questions left unanswered. The last 
question answered was that about 
God being able to keep us from 
"stumbling" (R.V.), in Jude v. 24. 

1 . The longest stairs mentioned in 

the Bible is called Jacob's ladder, 

reaching from earth to heaven. Jesus refers to it 

and adds a new meaning to the picture in St. John 

i. 51. 

2. It was Balaam, who put the big "stumbling 
stone" in the way of God's ancient people, and 
caused so many of them to fall into sin. You will 
find the sad story in Numbers xxii., xxv., and ref- 
erences to it in II. Peter ii. 15; Jude v. 11, and in 
Rev. ii. 14, where the very word "stumbling block" 
is used. 

3. Jesus called Peter "Satan" in Matt. xvi. 23, 
because he was an "offense" or "stumbling block" 
to Him. 

4. Solomon says, (Proverbs xviii. 9), "A 
brother offended is harder to be won than a strong- 
city." 

5. Jesus says (Matt, xviii. 6), It were better 
for us that a "millstone" were hanged about our 
neck, and that we were drowned in the depths of 
the sea, than that we should offend or make to 
stumble one of these little ones. 

6. In Matthew xiii. 41, He says, "All things 
that offend, i.e., all "stumbling stone," shall 
be gathered out of His kingdom." 



Helping 

Stones 

and 

Stumbling 

Stones 




96 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

7. By the grace of God we can get so far on in this life, that 
(Ps. cxix. 85), "Nothing shall offend us." Margin, "We shall 
have no 'stumbling blocks.' " 

8. Abimelech, made king by the men of Shechem, was kill- 
ed by a piece of ''millstone," thrown by a woman from the tow- 
er of Thebez. The story is in Judges ix. 6, 50; B.C. 1206. 

9. Women worked most at the "millstones" in the East. You 
will see pictures of them in almost any book of Bible illustra- 
tions, and Jesus says in Matthew xxiv. 41, that they will be 
"grinding at the mill" when He comes again. 

10. "Eben Ezer" is the name of the "help-stone" set up by 
Samuel, between Mizpah and Shen, in memory of the victory 
ever the Philistines, saying, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." 
(See I. Sam. iv. 1 ; v. 1 ; and vii. 12.) 

11. I imagine Paul was thinking of some "help-stones" in 
his life's battle when he said, (Acts xxvi. 22), "Having there- 
fore obtained 'help of God' I continue unto this day." 

12. Of course it was David, the shepherd lad, who chose the 
five smooth stones out of the brook, and with one of them killed 
the big giant Goliath. (I. Sam. xvii. 38-54). 

13. Here are five beautiful promises from the Word, which, 
when put together, will form a strong shield : 

"Fear not for I am with thee," etc., (Is. xli. 23). 

"All things are possible" etc., (Mark ix. 23). 

"I am thy shield," etc., (Gen. xv. 1). 

"Trust in the Lord," etc., (Ps. xxxvii. 3). 

"Have the faith of God" (Mark xi. 22), to quench all the fiery- 
darts of the wicked." (See Eph. vi. 15.) 

Leaving the answers to the questions about the "living 
stones" the "precious stones," etc., until another time, listen to 
the story sent me by a dear lady from Montreal, Canada, who 
loves little children : 

A True Story 

It is such a good plan for girls and boys to take a strong 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 97 

stand wherever they are. A little girl who loved to please her 
teacher went to a school where the other children in her class 
made fun of good children. One little friend with golden hair 
told her that she felt ashamed of her for repeating a verse of 
a hymn to the teacher, and for looking astonished when the 
girls did wrong, so little Alice felt unhappy and ashamed and 
soon began to be careful not to seem religious. She did not 
keep her eyes shut at prayer and began to be careless of pleas- 
ing God. I know the Saviour did not like this. Pretty soon 
Alice was taken away from that school by the mother and 
sent to a new school. She thought in her heart something like 
this : ''The girls got the best of me to make me do wrong. If 
I take a strong stand, they won't dare to say anything, and 
others will feel like doing as I do." The very first day in school 
there was a girl about Alice's age who dropped down on her 
knees at lunch time and began to pretend to pray. This was to 
make fun. Alice saw that this was her chance to lead a party of 
them to stand up for doing right, so she said gravely, "Sallie, 
how can you bear to make fun of a thing like prayer?" Sallie 
jumped up and the other girls looked sober. The elder ones 
called Alice and spoke kindly to her. No one knew that Alice 
felt a kind of happiness which has to be felt to be understood. 
Alice thought, "This must have happened just to help me to 
take a firm stand. Instead of being ashamed I know that I have 
got a victory for myself and others, but God knows that I am 
really a coward." 

When the golden-haired little girl who had spoken unkind- 
ly to Alice at her first school was sixteen years old, she came 
to visit her old companion, and said to her with her eyes full of 
tears, "I am going to join the church, for you know what the 
Lord says, in the Bible, that if we confess Him before men He 
will confess us before His Father and the holy angels, but if we 
denv Him He will denv us." 



Lesson XXIX 



Nia.ga.ra. 
and its 
Lessons 





and, 



I HAD a great treat the other day. After 
many years I stood again by the banks 
of the river, and great Falls of Niagara. 
The sun was setting behind a great bank 
of clouds, tinged with purple and gold; 
a soft haze lay over the scene. I stroll- 
ed over the bridge leading to Goat Isl- 
and watched the mighty river roaring and 
rushing with its resistless flood over the rocks and 
between little islands, onward and downward to- 
wards the mighty falls just below, and carrying 
with it the pent up forces of all the great lakes and 
rivers beyond, Erie, Huron, Michigan and Super- 
ior. 

Then I turned and walked back and slowly 
down by the river bank till I came to the Falls 
themselves, so often and yet never fully described 
by the pen or pencil of man. Prizing every step 
and every moment of the privilege, I seemed to 
devour with delight the scene and the sweep of the 
mighty torrent as it swept over the American Fall 
close to my left, and then farther over to the right, 
the unspeakably grand Horseshoe Fall on the Can- 
adian side, with Table Rock, the Cave of the 
Winds, the surging, foaming flood at the base of 
the Falls, tossing its waves and spray high in the 
air. Then on and down with the tide went the eye, 
watching with a fascination not to be put into 
words the onward sweet of the pent-up Niagara, 
between the sheer cliffs 200 feet high, and forming 



Bible Letmps for Little Feet 99 

the vast gorge through which it roared its way to the whirlpool 
and the rapids below, and then out of our sight, but surely on- 
ward and onward, with many a turn and roar, towards the lake 
below, to be lost in its peaceful depths, and to become part of 
Ontario's silver sea. 

And, as if to crown with glory this scene of beauty, above all, 
away beyond the electric light of the spanning bridges, was a 
rainbow of exquisite beauty, formed by the rays of the setting- 
sun piercing the mist — God's own seal to His own handiwork. 
Standing near "Hennepin's View" I looked at it all, and wor- 
shipped God with a more profound sense of His presence and 
power, than I have felt for a long time. 

How I longed to have you, my precious children, stand 
where I stood that afternoon, see what I saw, and hear what I 
heard, not with the outward eye and ear alone, but with the 
eyes and ears of my soul, bathed in the sunlight of God's In- 
finite love. 

Out of many images of glory and beauty that filled my soul, 
three were so precious that I would like to picture them to you, 
however feebly. Three names of our Lord Jesus Christ came 
before me. You will find them in the last part of a certain verse 
in the ninth chapter of Isaiah. 

I. "The Mighty God." Niagara was a mirror in which I 
saw the power of God. No force of man could stay the rush 
of that mighty torrent, as it made its way down and on to its 
appointed place. 

And with the "power" came the thought of the "love" of 
God. The pure clear water in its resistless sweep, was like the 
"love" that is stronger than death. 

Now take your Bibles and see if you can find some illustra- 
tions of this : 

(i) Who in the Old Testament, and who in the New, said 
something like this : "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the 
'power' and the glory"? 

L.ofC. 



100 Bible L^mps for Little Feet 

(2) In the roar of Niagara I heard "the thunder of His 
power. 1 ' Who said that and where in the Bible ? 

(3) Who said, "I am full of 'power' by the Spirit of the 
Lord" ? 

(4) Where and when did Jesus say : "All power is given unto 
Ale"? Finish the verse, and, if you can, tell me the peculiar 
meaning of the word "power" here. 

II. The sight of the roaring, tossing torrent below the Falls, 
with the fearful current and the deadly whirlpool, reminded 
me of our storm-tossed lives, the currents of temptation, and 
the awful roaring of sin in which so many go down and seem 
never to rise again. But high over all I saw the rainbow of 
hope, the token of our Father's care and love, and the second 
beautiful name of Jesus in the verse came to me, "The Everlast- 
ing Father." 

: ' Tis our Father and His kindness, 
Goes far out beyond our dreams." 

(1) Who said "Thou art our Father, though Abraham be 
ignorant of us, etc., our Father, our Redeemer"? (Margin, our 
Redeemer from everlasting "is Thy name"). 

(2) Where is that lovely and comforting passage : "I have 
loved thee with on everlasting love," etc. ? 

(3) "Who hath loved us and hath given us "everlasting con- 
solation," etc. Find the place and see how sweetly God the Fa- 
ther and our Lord Jesus work together to give us this. 

III. Then as I watched the mighty river a little longer, I saw 
it pass beyond the dreadful whirlpool, and out and away from 
sight, and I knew where it was going : on to be lost in the calm, 
deep waters of Lake Ontario, a few miles away. And the third 
lovely name of Jesus came to me : "The Prince of Peace." 

After the rush and roar of life, after the falls, the swirl of 
the torrent, and all the dreadful whirlpools, come the deep and 
peaceful River and the deeper Sea of God's eternal peace. And 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



101 



J seemed to see Jesus standing beside me as I gazed, and heard 
Him say witfi deeper meaning than ever : 

(i) "Peace I leave with you," etc. Find the place and finish 
the verse. 

(2) "The mountains shall bring peace." What kind of moun- 
tains ? 




(3) "Abundance of peace." How long? 

(4) "Peace to her like a river." What kind of a river do you 
think is meant? 

(5) "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the 
dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through 
the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in ev- 
ery good work to do His will, working in you that which is well- 
pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory 
forever and ever. Amen" (Heb. xiii. 20, 21). Learn this 
lovelv verse bv heart and use it as a Golden Text once a dav. 



Lesson XXX 



"The 
Little 
Behind 
Hand" 





HERE is a story to begin with today, enti- 
tled, "The Boy with Three Hands, or a 
Little Behind-hand" : 



In a queer little town not so far away, 
A queer little boy was born one day, 
He had well-formed limbs and eyes of blue, 
But, beside his two hands, from his back there 
grew 
A third hand — a little behind hand. 

Wherever he went, at work or play, 
In the morning bright or the evening gray, 
This queer little hand waved a silent plea — 
"You really must make some excuse for me, 
You see I'm a little behind hand." 

This boy grew into a stalwart man, 
With many a wise and worthy plan. 
With a wide-swung door to fair renown, 
But his whole career was not up, but down, 
He was always a little behind hand. 

Full often he said, "I must be free 
From this little hand ere it ruin me," 
But its grip on his life all the firmer grew, 
As he passed down the street every urchin knew 
The man with the little behind hand. 

With whitened locks and tattered gown 
He hobbles homeless about the town; 
A beggar despised at the door he stands. 
The reason you see, for he still has three hands, 
And one is — a little behind hand. 

But the saddest scene in his wasted years 
Is the last, where with sighs and groans and tears 
He stands a suppliant at heaven's gate, 
While the angel answers, "You come too late. 
You are still — a little behind hand." 

—A. E. T. 



Bible L^mps for Little Feet 103 

I wonder if we can find any stories like this in onr Bibles. 
Xot about boys and girls only, but perhaps about big people 
too. 

i. A great multitude of people lost a great blessing once 
because they were "a little behind hand" in their faith. These 
lines of Mr. Simpson's beautiful hymn will recall the story, one 
of the very saddest in all the Bible, and in all history : 

"1 hey came to the gates of Canaan 
But they never entered in. 
They came to the very threshold 
But they perished in their sin." 

Tell me: (i) The name of the place they came to, and its 
Bible meaning. (2) Who died there ? (3) How many men start- 
ed on a remarkable journey from this place? 

II. "A Little Behind Hand," is also the story of five beau- 
tiful women in the Xew Testament. 

(1) Tell me the Bible name of the story. (2) The meaning 
of the "oil." (3) The meaning of the ''lamps." (4) The meaning 
of "while they went to buy." (5) "The door was shut." 
Where else does our Lord speak of doors ? 

(1) "At the door." What? (2) "When thou hast shut the 
door." Do what? (3) "The doors being shut." Who came? 
(4) "At the door and knock." Y\ nose door and who is knock- 
ing? 

III. "A Little Behind Hand" in repentance is the sad story 
of a young man who had a very precious thing, and sold it for 
a trifle. 

Tell me: (1) His name and where he lived. (2) His occupa- 
tion or business. (3) His brother's name and why he hated 
this brother. (4) "He cried with an exceeding bitter cry." Who 
did, and where is this sad scene referred to in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews? (5) "No place of repentance." What does the 
margin say, and what do you think it means? (6) He is called 



104 Bible Lsvmps for Little Feet 

a "profane person" in this same chapter. We do not know that 
he ever cursed and swore. What then do you think "profane" 
means here? 

IV. "A little look behind" is sometimes as bad as "a little 
behind hand." 

(i) Eighteen hundred and ninety-eight years before Jesus 
came, a woman lost her life and perhaps her soul, by "looking 
back." Our Lord tells us to remember her. Find the story 
and the Gospel reference to it. (2) "Look not behind thee." 
Where is this command first found in the Bible? (3) Where 
does Jesus tell His dear ones the same thing, when in places of 
danger and coming trouble? (See St. Matt. xxiv. 16-18.) (4) 
Give me that verse in St. Luke ix. which speaks of "man," 
"hand," "plough," "looking back," and "Kingdom of God." (5) 
What does St. Paul say in Phil. iii. about "things behind?" 

V. "A little behind hand" in faith made a whole town lose 
a great blessing once. Jesus was there, ready and willing to 
save their souls, and heal their bodies. But that "little behind 
hand" held back the blessing. 

(1) "He could there do no mighty work, because of ." 

What? Find the passage. (2) "A little behind hand" in faith 
made : (1) The disciples fail to do what Jesus had just done. 
It was at the foot of a hill on the top of which they had just been 
and seen the very glory of God. It was a boy, too, about whom 
all the trouble was. Tell me the story. (2) A grown man, a dis- 
ciple, too, of Jesus, had "a little behind hand" in his faith in Je- 
sus as his risen Lord. Our Lord tried to help him to get rid 
of this sad little behind hand, by telling him to use his front hand 
by thrusting it into His side. 

Tell me the disciple's name and the beautiful blessing Jesus 
gives to those who can see Him with their eyes shut. 

(3) Where does Jesus say: It may be better sometimes to 
have one hand than two, one eye than two, one foot than two? 
Tell me what you think He means by these strange words. 



Lesson XXXI 




OL'R last talk was about the "Little Be- 
hind Hand," which is such a drawback 
to so many people, young and old. But 
while the "Little Behind Hand" is near- 
ly always a hindrance to us, and a cause 
of irritation to those about us who like 
to be punctual, sometimes things and 
and people behind us may be a help and stimulus 
to us. 

On the Canestoga Creek, in Pennsylvania, they 
have queer, old-fashioned flat boats. These boats 
are large enough to hold some hundreds of people, 
but draw only about six or eight inches of water, 
and are very flat on the bottom. The funny thing 
about them is the "paddle wheels," which are not 
at the side like our boats, but at the stern, and are 
not covered over, so that, as you stand on the deck 
at the rear, you can see all the machinery by which 
the wheels turn and drive the boat forward. And 
the whistle, where do you think it is ? At the stern, 
too, right under the deck and over the paddles. So 
that the signals are given and the work is done 
all from behind. And I thought, Well, after all, 
there may be good in some things we call "behind 
hand." At all events, in this case, all the pushing 
and blowing was done from behind, and the trip 
was just as comfortable and enjoyable as in many 
a more modern and noisy vessel. 

But our lesson today is to be the opposite of 
our last. It is to be on the "before hands" of our 



Before 
Hands 




106 Bible L^mps for Little Feet 

lives. God uses things and people, providences and graces, to 
be the little or big "before hands" of our daily walk and work, 
just as little hints of Himself, as our Guide and Vanguard. Xow 
again, with your Bibles open let us look for some of these "be- 
fore hands" of God's love and care for us and His people in all 
places and at all times. 

i. A beautiful bird was "before hand" one day, with some- 
thing in her mouth, which told a man of God something he 
wished very much to know. It happened 2,349 years ago. It 
was on the water. Eight people were eagerly waiting for the 
news. 

2. "What be these two branches?" (Zech. iv. 12). 

Find the passage and if you can, the meaning of what the bird 
carried in her mouth that day so long ago. 

3. Another man of God would have often been "behind 
hand" for his food, had not strange birds, not white this time, 
been "before hand" in bringing him his breakfast and supper 
every morning and evening, till he left the place. 

(1) Tell me the name of the birds. (2) The man of God 
whom they so strangely fed. (3) The name of the place where 
it happened. (4) Why did not the birds bring him water as 
well as bread and flesh ? 

3. This same man of God had a wonderful sign, given him 
in the sky one day, as he knelt in prayer on the top of a high 
mountain. It was a "little before hand" indeed. For the Bible 
says it was "like a man's hand." 

Tell me what it came "before hand" to do: (1) For the man 
of God. (2) For the land. (3) For the people, good and bad. 

4. There is one more beautiful "before hand" in the life of 
this holy man. He was tired and discouraged, as we all are 
sometimes. He was lying under a tree, and fell asleep. Before 
he woke up three things happened : 

(1) A messenger came from heaven. (2) A cake was cooked 
for him. (3) A cup of water was placed at his pillow. 



Bible L^mps for Little Feet 107 

For how many days did he live on (i) The message; (2) the 
meal sent from heaven ''before hand"? 

5. Where was Jesus ''a little before hand" with His tired 
disciples, and had a meal very like this ready for them when 
they came to land ? 

6. There was a strange and terrible ''before hand" at a great 
feast given by a great king whose name begins with "B." Tell 
me : 

(1) The king's name. (2) The city where the feast was 
given. (3) The date of the event. (4) Where the hand was 
seen. (5) What the hand wrote. (6) Who were called in first 
to read the writing. (7) Who at last, and alone could make 
it out. 

7. Where does Jesus say there will be signs, and one sign 
in particular before He comes ? What do you think "the sign 
of the Son of man in heaven" means ? 

8. There is only space for one or two more "little before 
hands" in the life of our Lord on the earth. There was : 

(1) A little dinner party. (2) A woman. (3) A box of oint- 
ment. (4) A word of censure from man. (5) A word of praise 
from God. "She is come 'aforehand,' " etc. Finish the verse, and 
tell me what you think this word "aforehand" means for you 
and me in our Christian life. 

Here is one lesson I have tried to learn from it for my life : 

"If we knew what forms are fainting 
For the shade that we should fling. 
If we knew what lips are parching 
For their water we should bring; 
We would haste with eager footsteps 
We should work with willing hands. 
Bearing cups of cooling water. 
Planting rows of shady palms." 



Lesson XXXII 



The Hot 
City 
e^nd the 
Dying 
Children 





OUR talk today will be "Silent 
Sufferers, and Children Mar- 
tyrs/' who with their tired 
mothers, are fighting a battle 
with heat and sickness, for 
their very lives, and falling by 
hundreds on the way as they 
struggle wearily along. 

But I would like our sympathy and prayer to 
go far out beyond our own town, city and country. 
Remember that what our mothers and children are 
suffering from heat and disease during this terrible 
weather, thousands and millions in other lands like 
India and China, are passing through in a mani- 
fold degree. For their comfort and ours, and to 
strengthen our faith while we pray, let us take 
ome of the precious promises of God's Word for 
"sick and weary ones." 

1. Find five passages in Isaiah which speak of 
"rest for the weary." 

2. "Speak a word in season to him that is 
weary." Who said that, and who will go and do it 
in this hot weather ? 

3. Where does it say Jesus was "wearied," and 
what did He do to get over it? 

4. Who was able to go on doing God's work — 
"In weariness and painfulness, in watchings of- 
ten, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold 
and nakedness ?" 

5. Sometimes we get tired so easily, and think 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 109 

our burdens so heavy. Who says : "If thou hast run with the 
footmen, they have wearied Thee," etc? Find and write out the 
whole passage for me. 

6. Whose three hundred men were "faint yet pursuing," B. 
C. 1249? 

7. Who brought six hundred men to a brook called Besor 
and had to leave two hundred behind, "Which were so faint, 
they could not go over?" 

8. Who said, "I had fainted unless I had believed to see"? 

9. What great man of God; his name begins with "D," faint- 
ed and was sick certain days ? 

10. What prophet; his name begins with "J," fainted and 
wished in himself to die ? 

11. What church in the book of Revelation is praised be- 
cause it had patience, had labored and not fainted? 

12. And of another in the same book it said, "Thou hast 
d little strength ; Thou hast kept the word of my patience." 

13. And as a last question today for all little sufferers, saints, 
martyrs, disciples, soul-winners, all weary and heavy laden ones, 
in every land, of every color and class, find and write out, if you 
have time, the eight overcomes of the book of Revelation, and 
tell me which one you like best, and hope to have as your por- 
tion when Jesus comes. 

And these parting words are my prayer for you and all our 
beloved children : 



"The love of Christ befriend you. 
The care of Christ attend you, 
Christ have you in His keeping 
When all the world is sleeping; 
Christ be with you tomorrow. 
In pleasure or in sorrow; 
Christ help you in temptation 
And every tribulation: 



110 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



Christ strengthen yon for duty, 
Give to your spirit beauty, 
And comfort you with gladness. 

"In every hour of sadness 
Christ bids His angels serve you: 
And from all ill preserve you. 
Christ make you pure and holy, 
And keep you meek and lowly; 
Until with Him in heaven, 
His crowning grace be given; 
The care of Christ defend you. 
The love of Christ attend you. 
Amen and amen." 




Lesson XXXIII 




GOD in His Word says a great many 
wonderful things about you, "little ones." 
What God says to us or of us, should 
never make us proud, but humble and 
thankful. So we shall not be afraid to 
hear some of "these sayings of His" 
about the "wee ones." 
I. You are going to be "leaders" in the mil- 
lennium when Jesus comes back to reign on the 
earth. You have seen what they call a "menag- 
erie," a collection of wild beasts — elephants, lions, 
tigers, etc., and sometimes you hear of a strong 
man going into the cage of a lion or a tiger, and 
feeding them, or even playing with them. And 
people outside, at a safe distance, look through the 
bars and wonder at the man's courage. But God 
says a day is coming when wild and tame, savage 
and gentle beasts are going to live, lie down, and 
eat together, and most wonderful of all, "a little 
child shall lead them." 

I. Do you think this means just animals, whose 
fierce nature God will have changed and made 
them willing to go where you want them to ? Look 
at Daniel vi. 22, and I. Kings xiii. 28, and see what 
God has done in this way in the past, and of course 
can do again when He wills. 

But perhaps it means people too : fierce like 
lions, cruel and cunning like wolves, rough and 
brutal like bears, whom the Holy Spirit is going 
to change inside, and you and other little ones are 



The Big 

Wee 

Ones 




112 Bible LoLinps for Little Feet 

going to lead out of themselves more and more, and up into the 
mountains and pasture lands of His new kingdom. So you must 
be getting ready for your place and work now. I have known of 
many, many fathers and mothers, almost as fierce as lions, 
brought to Jesus and made like lambs by the words, lives and so 
often by the deaths of their little children. 

Give me three examples of this from the Bible, and as many 
more as you can from your own experience. 

II. Jesus says you little ones are "samples" of what His 
kingdom and people are to be. That is what the passage means 
in Mark x. 14, "of such is the kingdom of God." 

You know what a sample is, a piece of cloth brought home 
from the store to show mother the kind she wants, is a sam- 
ple. A piece of string only a foot long is a sample of what you 
want for your kite. A little piece of bread or meat is a sam- 
ple of what you hope to have more of at dinner when the time 
comes. That is just what Jesus means when He says you little 
ones are : — 

The kind of people His kingdom is made of. You are the 
little bits of cloth, the little tastes of food, of which the 
whole garment is to be made, and the whole table spread at the 
wedding feast bye and bye. Not much of you, but enough of 
taste, and make us long for more. Each of you is something 
like the basket which the lad had with the five loaves and the 
two little fishes, which Jesus takes and blesses and sends you 
out into the world to feed the multitude, not with what you 
are in yourselves, but with what Jesus has made you. 

Now take your Bibles and see what some of these "little 
ones" have done as "samples." 

1. A little dreamer called J was a beautiful sample 

of faith, patience, and unjust suffering. God made him not only 
a "sample," but a prince and leader to his people. 

This "little one" is mentioned five times in the Book of 
Psalms alone. Find the passages for me. 



Bible L^mps for Little Feet 113 

2. Another "little one" of the Bible was not only a "sam- 
ple" but a "seer," that is, one who sees not only things, but into 
things, away beyond things into God, the center and meaning 
of all things. His name begins with ",S" and you know him 
well. But I want you to tell me what this ''little one" (a) heard, 
(b) saw, and (c) knew, which an old, old man near him did not 
hear, or see, or know, (d) What prophet says, "Your young 
men shall see visions"? and (e) Where it was fulfilled in the New 
Testament ? 

III. One of the sweetest words for a "little one" is "dar- 
ling." It means "little dear." Twice in the Bible, Psalm xxii. 
and xxxv., the word is used. 

i. Of David, whose name by the way, means "Beloved," or 
"Darling." Give me the passages. Then find : 

2. Where God delivered this "darling" of His : (a) From a 
lion and a bear ; (b) . From a great giant who was more than 
nine feet high, and whose coat of mail weighed 5,000 shekels 
of brass. How many pounds do you think that was? 

But a greater than David is here : above every one else Jesus 
is God's Darling. Tell me : 

1. Where and how often Jesus is called "My Beloved Son.' 

2. Where God delivered His "Darling" when He was a baby 
from the power of a man who was worse than a dog, or a lion. 

3. Where and when He was a grown man, but God's "Dar- 
ling" still, He saved Him from a crowd who wanted to throw 
Him from the brow of a hill and kill Him. 

But time is up and our space is nearly gone. Before we go 
let us remember these wonderful names God gives to you, His 
little ones in His Word: 1. Leaders. 2. Samples. 3. Seers. 
.\. Darlings. And ask Him to make us worthy of them. 



Lesson XXXIV 




I HAVE been at the sea, in the sea, un- 
der the sea, over the sea lately, so, of 
course, the sea is in my thoughts, and 
we shall take a trip together to the 
beach. 

Today let us think of that which 

makes the Beach worth coming to. 

The Sea. The mighty Atlantic Ocean, a part of 

a greater than itself. The sea in its largest sense, 

and in some of its spiritual meanings, are given 

us in the Word of God. 

I. Of how many seas are the names given in 
the Bible, and what are they? 

II. What body of water is meant by "The 
Great Sea" in the Bible? and tell me one curious 
physical fact about it. 

III. Tell me the name and trade of a man 
whose house is by the sea," for they say it is there 
still. 

IV. The Red Sea is mentioned thirty-one times 
in the Bible. Find five instances and tell me why 
you think this sea is mentioned so often. 

V. Where does it say that Jesus "shall speak 
peace unto the heathen," and that His dominion 
shall "be from sea to sea" ? 

VI. Where does God say "He will cast all their 
sins in the depths of the sea" ? 

VII. Where does Jesus say people had better 
be drowned, than to make little ones like you to 
stumble ? 



The Sea., 
the Sea., 
the Deep. 
Blue Sea. 




116 Bible LaLinps for Little Feet 

VIII. What prophet says, and where, "There is sorrow on 
the sea, it cannot be quiet"? They say there are always about 
seven millions of people on the sea. 

IX. Mention five great dangers to which ships are exposed. 
Captains tell us the very worst is a word of three letters. What 
do you think it is ? 

X. Where does God say, "The wicked are like the troubled 
sea, when it cannot rest" ? 

XI. There was a man of God who once had a hard time on 
the sea. Tell me : 

1. His name and its meaning. 

2. Where was he going when the storm came ? 

3. Where was he sleeping when the sailors woke him. 

4. Where does our Lord say : 

(a) That this strange story is true. 

(b) That it is an object lesson of His own more wonderful 
experience. 

XII. Which Psalm gives us the best description of a storm 
at sea? 

XIII. There is one little sea or lake mentioned in the Gos- 
pels, where many wonderful things happened. Tell me : 

1. Its three names. 

2. How long, and wide, and deep it is. 

3. How much below "sea level" it is. 

XIV. Jesus walked by it one day. What did He see? 

XV. He sat by it. What was He doing? 

XVI. He walked on it. Where was He going? 

XVII. He spoke to it. What did He say? 

XVIII. He brought 

1. Fish out of it one morning. How many? 

2. Money out of it in a fish's mouth. How much, and what 
for? 

XIX. Which of His disciples 

1. Lived near this sea? 2. Tried to walk on it once? 



Lesson XXXV 




THE SEA means sadness and sorrow- 
as well as joy. Let us think of the 
shadows on the sea today. 

XXI. What. is the great shipwreck 
chapter of the New Testament? Tell 
me : 

i. The name of the sea. 

2. The number on board the ship. 

3. The name of the captain of the soldiers on 
board. 

4. The man who proved himself the Real Cap- 
tain of the ship when trouble came. 

5. The name of his captain and what He said 
to him one night, the longest and darkest on the 
voyage. 

A beautiful motto and promise for us on any 
sea. and in any ship. "So God hath given thee all 
them that sail with thee." Think of it and take 
it by faith the next time you take a trip by sea. 

6. "When neither sun nor stars in many days 
appeared." (v. 20.) Why was it so important to 
see the sun and stars at that time ? 

7. How did they all get ashore at last ? 
XXII. Thousands of people are drowned ev- 
ery year. Give texts to prove that 

t. They shall rise again. 

2. They will be judged according to their 
works. 

There is the thought of sorrow, sadness, separ- 
ation, and death in the word sea. 



Ship- 
wrecks 
and 
Derelicts 



118 Bible Latmps for Little Feet 

Where does the Bible say that all these things shall pass 
away, and "there was no more sea." 

XXIII. But there is a sea which will never pass away, 
i. Where will it be? 

2. What is it called ? 

3. What two things that never were in this world are said 
to be "mingled" in this strange sea? 

4. Here only Jesus could stand and walk on the sea. Who 
shall stand on it there ? 

5. What will they have in their hands? 

6. What song will they sing? 

7. Why this song more than any other? 

May you and I stand and sing with them on that day, and in, 
that beautiful place, and till we do we will sing: 

"Jesus, Saviour, pilot me, 
Over life's tempestuous sea, 
Unknown waves before me roll, 
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal, 
Chart and compass come from Thee, 
Jesus, Saviour, pilot me. 

''As a mother stills her child, 
Thou canst hush the ocean wild, 
Boisterous waves obey Thy will, 
When Thou sayest, "Peace be still," 
Wondrous Sovereign of the sea, 
Jesus, Saviour, pilot me. 

"When at last I near the shore. 
And the fearful breakers roar, 
Twixt me and the peaceful rest, 
Then while leaning on Thy breast. 
May I hear Thee say to me, 
Fear not, I will pilot thee." 

And here is a piece by our dear friend, Mr. Hastings, of Bos- 
ton ; so good that I want you all to read and study it carefully : 



Bible L^mps for Little Feet 119 

Floating Perils — Beware 

One of tbe serious dangers of the deep is found in the risk 
of colliding with ships which have been abandoned. A timber- 
laden ship, which has become water-logged, is frequently a 
source of peril. Such a ship will not sink, but will simply float 
and drift with tides and currents. A three-masted schooner, the 
W. L. White, was abandoned March 13th, 1888, the day of the 
great blizzard, some eighty miles from New York. May found 
her in the region of the Gul'f Stream. From that time to the 
end of October she drifted in and out of that current, and fin- 
ally, on January 23d, 1889, she went ashore near the Hebrides, 
having floated more than five thousand miles, and having been 
seen and reported by forty-five different ships, besides others 
that might have passed close to her in the dark and foggy 
weather. Of course such a vessel, without crew or pilot, simply 
drifting, drifting, drifting, might drift into the track of an ocean 
steamer rushing through the water with the speed of a race- 
horse; a tremendous crash might follow, and one or both of the 
vessels might go to the bottom, leaving none to tell the tale. A 
rock or a wreck can be located, charted, buoyed, and guarded 
against, but a derelict vessel, abandoned, floating, drifting, shifts 
its position every hour, and no one can tell when or where it 
will be encountered. 

There are derelict men in the world : water-logged, aban- 
doned ; they make no headway, they answer to no helm ; they 
are sailing to no port, they have no place of destination. They 
float, they drift, and they are in the way. If you can keep clear 
of them, well and good; if you collide with them, you do them 
no good, they may do you great harm. You cannot help them, 
you cannot save them, you cannot move them. To undertake 
to stir them is like kicking a dead elephant. A man might 
wreck himself on one of these derelicts, and it would still float 
on, and on, and on. 

Thus the man of God from Judah, who came and cried 



120 



Bible LsLinps for Little Feet 



against the altar of Jeroboam in Bethel, could stand against all 
the power of the king, but when he encountered a water-logged, 
lying prophet, he went down. (I. Kings xiii. 18.) 

There are numbers of these derelicts floating ; backslidden 
ministers, editors, lying professors, men who have lost their 
reckoning and their faith ; who drift with the currents ; who are 
bound nowhere ; who are no longer sent of God or moved by 
the Spirit, but who float on and on in the darkness, until at last 
they lie stranded on some distant shore. They help no one, they 
bless no one, they carry nothing, they are a curse and a danger 
to all who encounter them. May God pity men who are floating 
without chart or anchor; without aim or object : who hinder, but 
do not help, who destroy, but do not save ; and may He help 
His true servants to steer clear of them, to give these floating 
derelicts a wide berth, and be not entangled or endangered by 
them. — From The Armoury, edited by H. L. Hastings. 




Lesson XXXVI 




SOME one has said: "Man made the city, 
but God made the country." Well, let 
us take our Bibles and see how true or 
how false this saying may be. Perhaps 
we shall find God working out through 
man His own divine purpose even in the 
building of a city. Perhaps we shall find 
the "City of Man" with all its sins and sorrows only 
the stepping stone to the "City of God." Perhaps 
we shall see stone and wood, art and men's device in 
the human city only a preparation for the city which 
hath foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God. 
Keep this thought in your minds as we look up 
the texts, and you will see a meaning in the very 
order of the passages we are to find. 

i. Who built the first city mentioned in the Bi- 
ble ? What did he call it and why ? 

2. "The Lord came down to see the city." It 
must have been a wonderful sight. 

(a) Tell me its name, the meaning of it, and 
why it was built, (b) What strange thing happen- 
ed there in a moment that has lasted till this day? 
(c) When and where will the great "wrong" of 
that day be made "right" forever? 

3. There was once a city so wicked that neith- 
er God nor man could find fifty good people in it. 
Tell me : 

(a) Its name and its sister city in sin. (b) What 
good, but weak man made "the mistake of his 
life" in going there to live?. (c) What "little city," 



The 
City 




122 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

''is it not a little one?" did he escape to from the "big one" 
about to be destroyed? 

4. Where is a city called "Adam" mentioned? 

(a) What wonderful thing happened there one day? (b) 
Over to what other city did the people pass by the strange road 
God made for them ? (c) After the strangest siege in the world 
this "city of palm trees" was taken. Tell me : 

(d) How. (e) Who was saved in it. (f) Does Jesus ever 
mention its name and where ? (g) Who tried to rebuild the city 
in spite of the "curse of God" upon it? And with what result? 

5. "There was a little city and few men within it : And 
there came a great king," etc. 

(a) Find and give the whole of this beautiful passage, (b) 
Who do you think is meant spiritually by this little city? (c) 
Who is the "great king" always coming against it ? (d) Who is 
the "poor wise man" who delivered it? (e) Where does Jesus 
speak of another King "coming against him (us) with twenty 
thousand ? (f) What promise have we that the "little city" with 
the "poor wise man" in it, will be able to withstand and over- 
come "all the power of the enemy" ? 

6. There was a "little city" whose name begins with "B." 
where a weary man had a wonderful vision of God one night. 

(a) Tell me its ancient name, (b) What this tired man had 
for his pillow, (c) What he saw. (d) What he heard, (e) What 
he said, (f) What he called the place, (g) What he did with his 
pillow when he was going away. 

7. There was another "little city" where a hungry man was 
praying. 

(a) What wonderful vision did God give him? (b) What 
use did he make of it? (c) What blessing came to others 
through it? 

8. There was a "big city" where a man of God, after a hard 
day, had a vision by night, in which God said to him : 

(a) "Be not afraid." (b) "Speak, hold not thy peace." (c) 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 123 

"I am with thee.'' (d) "No man shall set on thee to hurt thee." 
(e) "I have much people in this city." 

9. There was and is a very "old .city." They say it is the 
oldest in the world. Its name begins with "D." 

This man of God was there once in great danger. This 
time God did not give him a vision or a voice. 

And tell him to stay 
But in a very strange way, 
His friends in the night, 
Got him out of his plight. 

Now tell me I pray 

What you have to say, 

Of this story all true, 

Its lesson for me and for you. 

10. There was a "sorrowful city." "A Man of Sorrows and 
acquainted with grief" was going in. A mother with her dead 
boy was going out. They met. Tell me the rest of the story 
and in which Gospel only is it found. 

n. "There was great joy in that city." 

(a) What was its name? (b) What caused the joy? (c) 
W T ho made the people so glad? (d) Where did the evangel- 
ist go after the revival? (e) Who else as a consequence "went 
on his way rejoicing"? 

All these cities were built by man, for man's profit, or for 
man's glory. Some of them were very wicked. All of them had 
some sin in them. Many of them had much sorrow. Yet in 
spite of the sin, the sorrow, the unbelief, the hardness of heart, 
the contempt of God's Word and commandment, of which their 
people were guilty : 

God came down to see them. 

God sent His messengers to warn them. 

God sent His "darling" Son to die for them. 

God sent you and me to live in some of them, and win some 
of them to Him. 




The 



Lesson XXXVII 

ONE more talk together about the 
"City." This time the brighter side. 
Not so much the "city" and the 
"cities" of man's making and man's 
marring, as of God's redeeming, 
cleansing and fitting for Himself. Holy 

For God does sometimes, in the City 
Bible, take "cities" as He takes people, and calls 
and makes them His own. Not "without blood" 
indeed, but "through blood," and tears and fire 
and water. He does take and make "places," His 
"Dwelling Place." 

Then bye and bye He is coming to take us to a 
"City" and a "House," "not made with hands," 
in the streets of which boys and girls will play, and 
in the rooms of which we shall rest forever. 

So again with Bibles open, and praying for the 
Holy Spirit's light, let us look for : 

i. The first city God took of all the cities in the 
world, and called it His own. Tell me : 

(a) Its old name beginning with "S." 

(b) Its new name beginning with "J." 

(c) The name of its first king mentioned in the 
Bible. 

(d) Who is to be its last King? 

(e) Who first captured it, held, and dwelt in the 
fort, and called it by his own name ? 

2. Nine kings were buried in this city. Tell me 
the names of three famous ones. 

3- But a little village, beginning with "B." was 
also called by this roval name. 




126 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

(a) What royal child was born there? 

(b) What did the angels say about Him on His birthday ? 

4. Jesus lived for a time in five cities of Palestine, and did 
some wonderful things in each. Their names begin with : (a) 
B. (b)N. (c)C. (d)C. (e)J. 

Give me a text about each. 

5. Five times in the Psalms alone Jerusalem is called "The 
City of God." Find the passages for me, and the meaning of the 
peculiar word beginning with "S" and ending with "h" which 
stands at the close of the fifth passage. 

This beautiful Jerusalem is often called "The Holy City." 

First, It is used of Jerusalem that now is. 

1. Find that passage in Isaiah which says : "Awake, Awake," 
etc., "put on thy beautiful garments, O, Jerusalem, the Holy 
City." 

2. Jesus was often in this Holy City. Once the devil took 
Flim there. When, and for what purpose ? 

3. Some very strange visitors went into this Holy City one 
day, and "appeared unto many." Matthew, 27th chapter, has it. 

4. Tell me the last time Jesus saw this Holy City. 

5. What bright young man said: "I was brought up in this 
city at the feet of Gamaliel" ? 

What do you think "at the feet of Gamaliel" means ? 
Give me a passage in St. Luke ii. which shows our Lord 
as a boy in the same position. 

Would you stay there if you had known as much as He did : 

(a) About His teachers? 

(b) About Himself? 
(b) About Himself? 

6. Where did Jesus say this "Holy City," this "Beautiful 
City," this "City of our God," should be destroyed for the sins 
and blindness of its people? 

How long after His own death did this happen? 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 127 

What Roman Emperors had to do with its overthrow? 

"What touching image of His love for the city and its peo- 
ple does Jesus give us in St. Matthew, 23rd chapter ? 

Second, The words "The Holy City" are used of the better 
Jerusalem that is to be, but is not yet here. 

1. "Where is the word "New Jerusalem" first used in the Bi- 
ble? 

There are four beautiful things God says He will do, in this 
verse, "to- him that overcometh." Find them for me, and tell 
me which you think the best of the four. 

Third, This city is also called "The Heavenly Jerusalem." 

1. Where is it so called? 

2. What two other names are given to it in the same pas- 
sage ? 

3. Five persons and classes of people we are to meet there : 
now by faith, then by sight. 

Tell me who they are and whom of them all we shall be 
most glad to see. 

4. Who first saw this "Beautiful," "Holy," City, "coming 
down from God out of heaven?" 

5. Where was he when God gave him the vision? 

6. Why was he there? 

7. Tell me four things that we shall not see or hear there. 
They are all in one verse. 

Why will there be no need of : — 

(a) A temple; 

(b) The sun; 

(c) The moon, there ? 

9. Why will the shape of the city be that of a cube? The 
last part of one verse tells us. 

10. How many 

(a) Foundations, and 

(b) Gates has the City? 

11. What are the gates and the foundations made of? 



128 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

12. Why shall we not want gold there? 

13. When are the gates shut? 

14. Who can never "enter in" even when the gates are open, 
and why? 

15. The country with all its beauty is going to be in the 
midst of this Holy City. "The Garden and the City" will be one 
forever. 

16. Tell me how you know this, and that we shall not have 
to go "away for the summer," as we do now, on account of the 
heat, and to see something green, and get fresh fruit. 

17. "They shall see His face." 

"His name shall be in their foreheads." 

"His servants shall serve Him." 

What three precious truths do these three texts express ? 

18. Who is coming soon to make all this real to us? 

(a) "Behold, I come quickly,. . ." 

(b) "Behold, I come quickly ..." 

(c) "Surely, I come quickly . . ." 

Finish the verses, and say from your heart the closing 
prayer. 




Lesson XXXVIII 




HERE is a picture of real life which I saw 
the other day. Two Italian men and 
three Italian women in front of a new 
building. Piles of lumber and broken 
pieces of boards and refuse of the car- 
penters' work lying in a heap. The men 
were gathering the pieces of boards and 
sticks together and when the bundle was large 
enough, and so heavy that they could just com- 
fortably lift it, they took it up between them and 
put it — where do you think? On the top of the 
head of one of the women standing by. Not their 
own head observe, but the head of a thin, worn 
woman, who took up the burden without a word, 
straightened herself under it, with only a little 
round pad on her head to make the heavy load 
balance and sit comfortably, and walked away with 
it, while her sisters waited for their turn, and their 
burden from the hands of the strong men who 
were so kind as to let them carry the loads for 
them. 

I saw these women afterwards blocks away, not 
bending, but standing and walking straight as 
poles under their heavy loads and having perhaps 
a mile yet to go before they could lay their bur- 
den down. 

The sight impressed me, and set me thinking 
and thinking for you dear children, and my 
thoughts are taking shape in this talk on "Bible 
Burden Bearers." What a subject of thought and 



Burden 
Bearers 




130 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

study of God's Word it opens before us, from Genesis to Reve- 
lation, and then what illustrations of it from history and our ex- 
perience ! Yes, children dear, your own experience, though so 
young. 

What varieties of the name and of the thing itself come up 
before our mind: Big Burden Bearers, Little Burden Bearers, 
Bad and Sad Burden Bearers, Good and Glad Burden Bearers, 
Strong Burden Bearers, Weak Burden Bearers, Sinful Burden 
Bearers, Innocent Burden Bearers, Old Burden Bearers, Baby 
Burden Bearers, Heathen Burden Bearers, Christian Burden 
Bearers, and last and best of all, the Alpha and Omega of all 
Burden Bearers, Jesus, who His own Self, "bare our sins in 
His own body on the tree, the Just for the unjust, that He might 
bring us to God" (I. Peter ii. 24; and iii. 18). 

Let us begin then, with our Bibles open, and with an earnest 
prayer for God's Holy Spirit to come and make the Word and 
the subject full of meaning and interest to us, and to others 
through us day by day this fresh new year. 

(1) Who were the first burden bearers in the Bible? 

(2) What was the burden? 

(3) How did those who ought to have borne it try to get rid 
of it? 

(4) What did the man say to God about it? 

(5) What did the woman say? 

(6) Who was the only silent sinner there that sad day? 

(7) What does the Bible say (a) About the man's share of 
the burden (See Romans v. 12, 14, 15, 16-19) ; (b) About the wo- 
man's part in the matter (See II. Cor. xi. 3 ; I. Tim. ii. 14) ; (c) 
the other person's share (St. John viii. 44; Revelation xii. 9, 
and xx. 2) ? 

II. Now let us look at some of the Boy Burden Bearers of 
the Bible. 

(1) The first in Genesis, His name begins with "C." and that 
letter is the first in the awful thing he bore to his dying day. 



Bible LeLmps for Little Feet 131 

You may have heard of the "Curse of C ?" 

(2) What was it do you think ? 

'The Lord set a mark upon C ," etc. Finish the verse 

and tell me what you think this mark was. 

Scholars tell us that the Hebrew words in this text mean, 
"The Lord gave a sign to C," as He did to (a) Noah (Gen. ix. 
13); (b) Moses (Exodus iii. 2, 12); (c) Elijah (I. Kings xix. 11), 
and others. 

(3) This burden bearer said a very sad and suggestive thing 
to God. It begins with the words "My punishment," etc. Find 
the text. Xote the last word of it. Then look in the margin, 
and see how it is given there. Note the last word carefully. 

(4) Then tell me what Jesus says of a certain sin, and the 
only one of which He ever said this. St. Mark iii. 22-30 has it. 

(5) This burden bearer's name is mentioned in the New Tes- 
tament. Find the passages and write out the one that gives us 
the reason of his awful crime. 

(6) He is said to have built a city (Genesis iv. 17), and call- 
ed it by a beautiful name, the name of his son, and the name 
of something he never had — poor burden bearer ! 

What is the name and what does it mean ? 

Have you got it? Who gave it to you? St. Matthew xi. 
28-30, and Hebrews iv. 3, 9, will help you to answer. See the 
beautiful marginal reading of this last verse. 

(7) There is a city called by the name of this burden bear- 
er, in Joshua xv. 57, but no one seems to know just where it 
was, or anything about it. His name means "possession," and 
yet he never had a real one in his life, except his sin, the pen- 
alty of it. 

But we must close our school for this week, only giving 
you as we part a few lines which will help us to bear our burdens 
better till we meet again : 

Child of My love, lean hard, 

And let Me feel the pressure of thy care. 



132 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



I know thy burden 

For I fashioned it. 

Poised it with Mine own hand 

And made its weight 

Precisely that which I saw best for thee, 

And when I placed it on thy shrinking form, 

I said, "I shall be near and 

While thou leanest on Me 

This burden shall be Mine — not thine. 

Here lay it down, 

Nor fear to weary Him 

Who made, upholds, guides the universe, 

Yet closer come. 

Thou art not near enough. 

Thy care, thyself, lay both on Me. 

That I may feel my child reposing on my heart. 

So shall I keep within My circling arms, 

The child of Mine own love. 

Thou lovest Me, 

I doubt it not, 

Then, loving Me, lean hard. 




Lesson XXXIX 




We are to think today again of some Bur- 
den Bearers. 

I. Sinful and sad burden bearers of 
which our Bibles speak. 

You will find four very sad burden 
bearers in the 27th chapter of Genesis. 
1. An old father, feeble and blind, his 
name begins with "I." 

(a) Tell me when he lived. 

(b) "Where and when he died. 

(c) How old he was. 

(d) Who buried him? 

(e) What was his burden ? 

A very wonderful thing happened to him when 
he was a lad. Read Hebrews xi. 17-19; and St. 
James ii. 21. 

And then tell me in your own words the story 
of the boy who said : "Behold the fire and the 
wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 

2. A fond but foolish mother whose name be- 
gins with "R." Tell me : — 

(a) Her father's name. 

(b) The first beautiful picture we have of her 
in the Bible. 

"The damsel was very fair to look upon," etc. 
(Margin says "Good of countenance"). 

(c) Her brother's name, who had so much 
trouble with her son afterwards. 

(d) The name of her nurse, who so often car- 
ried her in her arms, and was thus a B. B. to her 



More 

Burden 

Bearers 




134 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

3. An elder son, wild and careless of his privileges, his name 
begins with "E." 

(a) What do you thing his burden was ? It begins with "R." 

(b) There was a burden also beginning with "R." which 
would have saved him from the other awful one. 

(c) The Bible says : "Godly sorrow worketh 'R.' Not to be 
R — of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death." Find this 
passage, and then the story of a man whose name begins with 
"A." and ends with "L.," and who lived in the time of David. 

4. A younger son whose name and character you know very 
well. He had two names, one meaning "Supplanter," which 
he deserved, and which brought many heavy burdens upon him, 
until one night in a very wonderful way, God changed his na- 
ture and then his name, and from that day, though he had many 
heavy burdens to bear, he bore them in the power of his new 
name. Tell me his old name, and his new. 

II. But now we must 

"Turn our cloud about 
And wear it inside out 
To show the lining." 

We have had the dark side of our subject, the sad and the 
sinful burden bearers. Let us finish this talk with a few words 
about some shining and glad burden bearers. 

First in order come : — 

(1) The angels, the bright, beautiful, shining, singing, soar- 
ing messengers of God. Belonging to heaven, but living most 
01 their time on the earth, down here among men and women, 
and little children, the sad, sinful sorrowing burden bearers, 
and helping them in a thousand ways to "Bear and be bright" 
under the burden. 

Children dear, if we all, old and young, could only see them 
hovering around us, in the darkness and in the light, if we 
could onlv hear the soft rustle of their wings, and the sweet 



Bible Latrnps for Little Feet 135 

notes of their "songs in the night," if we could only feel the 
touch of their strong" hands lifting us and placing us on their 
strong shoulders, and carrying us when we are too tired to 
walk another step, I am sure we would take heart, cheer up, 
and go on with new faith in our hearts, and a new song in our 
mouths. 

Here are just a few examples of what these shining and 
sinless ones are called and are doing for God's weary children 
on the earth. 

"Lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me" etc. 

"Behold, one like the multitude of the sons of men, touched 
my lips," etc. 

"Gabriel made this man to understand the vision," etc. 

"I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God, and am 
sent to speak unto thee," etc. To whom? And to say what? 

"The angel Gabriel was sent from God," etc. 

(i) To what place? 

(2) To what person ? 

(3) With what message? 

Find these passages and tell me the names of the burden 
bearers, the burdens they carried and how the angels lifted 
them. 

There was a poor outcast woman once carrying the heavy 
burdens of her boy and both nearly dead with thirst and grief. 

Tell me her name beginning with "H.," and the angel mes- 
sage that lifted the load from both, and the name she gave the 
spot where God had so wonderfully met her. 

A man of God, named "G." was in much distress of mind 
because God had put the burden of a great work upon him. 
He brought a little offering, the best he had. "The angel of 
the Lord put forth the end of his staff," etc. Look up the story 
in the book of Judges, and see how beautifully the touch of 
the angel lifted the burden, and brought light and comfort to 
the troubled mind. 



136 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



Then, too, mark the beautiful name the man gave the place 
where God had met and blessed him. 

Now, before we close our talk for today, tell me where God 
says, 

(i) "He will give His angels charge," etc. "They shall 
bear thee (burden and all) in their hands," etc. 

(2) "Cast (roll) thy burden on the Lord," etc. 

(3) "I removed his shoulder from the burden," etc. 

And last of all, the word you think the sweetest Jesus ever 
said to "burden bearers." 




Lesson XL 




"SHINING, sinless, singing Burden 

Bearers" was our subject last week. 

That is the beautiful angels bearing 

us in their hands lest we dash our feet 

against a stone, as the 91st Psalm says, 

or as Hebrews i. 14 puts it, "Are they 

not (the angels) all ministering spirits, 

sent forth to minister for, or serve — wait upon — 

those who shall be heirs of salvation?" That is 

you and me. 

Today I am thinking of a great host of inno- 
cent, though not sinless Burden Bearers. I mean 
those whom you and I meet every day on the 
street, and especially in our hospitals, and places 
like them. 

Crippled, deformed, doubled-up boys and girls, 
men and women; blind, deaf, dumb, dwarfed, car- 
rying loads of sin, shame, sorrow, for which they 
are not responsible, and yet which they must bear 
on to the end as bravely as they can. 

They are not sinless, for they have our sinful, 
fallen nature, but they are innocent of the particu- 
lar sin or sins w r hich others committed, but of 
which they are bearing fearful consequences in 
their bodies and minds. 

Oh, you beautiful, well-formed, straight, strong, 
healthy boys and girls of my class, with good fa- 
thers and mothers, with happy homes and holy 
surroundings, I do want you to think of and pray 
for these sad, and often soured Burden Bearers, 



Little 
Innocents 




138 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

who cannot understand why von and I should be born straight, 
and well-formed, and they so weighed down with disfigurements 
and deformities. It is of these little ones carrying the burdens 
of the big ones, the "children" bearing the sins of the "parents," 
as God's Word in Exodus xx. 5, and many other places says 
they do, the "good," at least morally, carrying the loads put up- 
on them by the "bad," that I want you to think of with me 
today. Not to understand the "why" and the "wherefore" of it 
all, for I do not any more than you, but to look at it reverently 
in the light of God's Word, and see if here again this "just for 
the unjust" problem may not, if rightly viewed, bring us to God, 
in Jesus Christ, the Great Example of it, and not drive us away 
into unbelief and hatred of God and His dealings as it does with 
bo many. 

First take your Bibles and look at some pictures in it of 
these Baby Burden Bearers, "Little Innocents" as we some- 
times call them, carrying the loads of the guilty. 

(1) The "Master of dreams," as the margin has it. A beau- 
tiful boy who had done no wrong to others, but whose wrongs 
he had to bear for many years. 

You know his name and story well, only perhaps you had 
not thought of him as a beautiful type of Jesus. The just 
bearing the sins of the unjust, to bring his brethren to God. 
Find his touching words, "Now, therefore, be not grieved nor 
angry that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you 
to preserve life." Moreover, he kissed all his brethren and 
v^ept upon them, and after that his brethren talked with him." 

(2) Find the place in the Bible where for the sin and stub- 
bornness of one man, all the first-born of the land died. From 
the first-born of the king on the throne, to the first-born of 
the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the first born of 
cattle. 

"There was a great cry, for there was not a house where 
there was not one dead. Tell me where the text is. Tell me 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 139 

who was the king? Tell me what was the place, and then think 
of how yon would feel if here in your own town or city, yon 
went out some morning and found crepe on every door, and if 
you walked from morning until night, you could not find a 
house in which there was not one dead. 

(3) How many tired children do you think went out of 
Egypt, and through the Red Sea, on that wonderful night when 
God delivered His people? Let me help you guess. The Bible 
says (find the place), "About six hundred thousand on foot, that 
were men, besides children." On foot, men ; babies carried in 
mothers' arms, or perhaps, just able to trudge along by their 
side and getting so tired. How many do you think there were 
of these innocent burdens and burden bearers ? Well, if you 
count three babies or "little ones" for each family, that would 
be 600,000 times 3, or 1,800,000, or nearly two million babies 
going that long journey, and through all that suffering for the 
sin of one wicked man and his people. 

What, a picture these innocent Israelitish babies were of the 
Baby Jesus, who long after was to bear the sin of many! (Isa. 
liii. 12.) 

(4) Then think of the Innocent Burden Bearers in the wil- 
derness, between Egypt and the Promised Land. You know 
that all that great host, 600,000 men and 1,800,000 babies might 
have been in their own beautiful Canaan in a few days, if they 
had obeyed God. But you know the story, how for forty long, 
weary years, they wandered up and down, till all who came out 
of Egypt were dead, except two men. 

Tell me their names, and why they were spared and allowed 
to enter in. 



Lesson XLI 




THIS subject of our thoughts is growing 
upon me, and the Bible seems more full 
of it each time I think and write about 
it. The word seems to apply to so many 
people in every walk and condition of 
life. To tired mothers and fathers, 
boys and girls, sick and well, far away 
in heathen lands and here at home. Those who 
stand up straight under their loads like the Italian 
women in one of our former talks, and those who 
bend and break down under them, or only pain- 
fully drag them after them day by day, as they go 
along the way. 

So I am going to put all the burden bearers in- 
to classes — one, two, three and four, in the school 
of suffering and sorrow, and have our great Mas- 
ter Burden Bearer, Jesus, take charge of them, 
and show us, first from His Word; and second, 
from His life, something of what it means. 

The name of our first class is (i) Royal Burden 
Bearers. By this I mean kingly men and women, 
boys and girls, simple and clever people who in 
high or low estate, in past or present clays, took up 
the burdens God put upon them, and bore them 
bravely or sadly, as the case might be, sighed or 
sang under them, and helped or hindered others 
in the long procession, by the way they bore their 
loads. 

I. The first two kings of God's ancient people 
are excellent examples of royal burden bearers. 



Royal 

Burden 

Bearers 



142 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

The first sad ; the second glad. One bending, breaking, dying 
under his load; the other becoming a stronger man of God by 
carrying his load straight to God, and laying it down at His 
feet, and then taking up a new and better one and bearing it 
in God's strength, not his own, to the end of his days. You know 
their names and their story well. The first name begins with 
"S.," the second with "D." The big burden the first king car- 
ried was very heavy, so heavy and hard that it crushed his life 
out at last in the saddest of ways. The burden was disobedience. 

(i) Tell me the name of the king and his first act of dis- 
obedience. (2) Who told him of his sin and the consequences 
of it? (3) Find in your Bible and finish that beautiful verse, 
"To obey is better than sacrifice," etc. (4) What does Jesus 
say like this in St. Matt. v. 24; ix. 13 ; xii. 7? (5) Find and read 
the story of "The man of God who was disobedient unto the 
word of the Lord." (6) What dumb brutes stood by his dead 
body, one tame, the other wild, while men passed by, as if they 
did not care ? (7) What curious curse is pronounced in Pro- 
verbs on "The eye that despiseth to obey his mother"? (8) 
AVhere and when did the king's burden crush him to the earth, 
and whom did he drag down with him ? 

II. Now look for a moment at the other Royal Burden 
Bearer. 

His terrible burden was gross sin (1) against God; (2) against 
his neighbor. 

(1) Who told the kingly sinner his great fault? (2) How 
did the king take it, and what did he say? (3) What beautiful 
Fsalm did he write in confession of his sin? (4) Finish these 
verses of it and see how the sense of sin against God was what 
pave him most pain. "Against Thee, Thee only," etc. : "Behold 
Thou desirest truth," etc. Where? "Purge me," etc. What 
does I. John i. 7, 9, say about this. "Create in me," etc. What 
does Ezekiel xxxvi. 25-27, say like this? "Restore unto me the 
joy," etc.; and "Uphold me with Thy Spirit" (margin 



Bible LaLimps for Little Feet 143 

says '"constant spirit;" some say the words mean princely Spir- 
it"). "The sacrifices of God are ." Read with this that lovely 

word in Isaia'h lvii. 15. (5) When and how did David become. 
"A man after God's own heart?" \\ nere does the Bible (a) In 
the Old Testament, and (b) In the New Testament, say that? 

"Give me a heart like Thine. 
By Thy wonderful power. 
By Thy grace every hour. 
Give me a heart like Thine." 

Then like David "We shall be new creatures in Christ Jesus" 
(II. Cor. v. 17; Col. vi. 15). We shall be boys and girls "after 
God's own heart," and then in God and God in us, having laid 
aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets us, we can 
carry any burden God may lay upon us ; with heart clean, head 
erect, we shall not only walk upright, but even run with patience 
the race that is set before us ! Yes, and even sing as we go, 
because we are "looking unto," "living in," "loving by" Jesus 
the Great Burden Bearer of our sins, sorrows and daily trials. 

"I saw a blood-washed pilgrim 
A sinner saved by grace, 
Upon the King's great highway. 
With peaceful, shining face. 

"Temptations sore beset him. 
But nothing could affright, 
He said, 'The yoke is easy. 
The burden it is light.' 

"1 saw him overcoming 

Through all the swelling strife, 
Until he crossed the threshold 
Of God's eternal life." 



Lesson XLII 




TODAY I want you to think 
with me of some of the 
"Honor Rolls of our Lord 
Jesus," as found in the 
New Testament. 

I. First He honored peo- 
ple by sending them before 
Him to prepare the way for Him, His pioneers as 
we might call them. 

(i) Tell me the last and greatest of these pion- 
eers of Jesus. Of Him Jesus said once : "Among 
them that are born of woman there hath not risen 
a greater." Why was he great? And then explain 
if you can, what Jesus said about him in the last 
part of the same verse. 

II. He had an Honor Roll of those who came 
to Him at His first call. 

(i) Where is the fullest list of these twelve 
men in the Gospels ? 

(2) Who stands first in every list? 

(3) How many of them were brothers ? 

(4) How many Judases were in the list, and 
v here are they mentioned together in the same 
verse? 

(5) Who on this Honor Roll lost their place ? 
(a) One for a time ; (b) another forever. 

(6) Who of these twelve might be called 
"chosen out of the chosen?" Three times Jesus 
honored them in a special way: (a) in a place of 
death; (b) in a place of suffering; (c) in a place 



God's 

Honor 

Kolls 




146 Bible Larrups for Little Feet 

of glory. Find the places and tell me who were present in each 
case besides Jesus and these chosen ones. 

(7) Who was called ''the disciple whom Jesus loved"? (a) 
How often, and where is he called by this beautiful name ? (b) 
Where is he last mentioned in the Bible? (c) What is his last 
recorded prayer? 

III. A man once wanted to know how many would be on the 
"Honor Roll of Salvation." 

(1) His question was: "Lord, are there few that be saved?" 

(2) Give the answer of Jesus and the exact meaning of the 
word "strive" in it. 

(3) How often and where did He say : "Have I not chosen 
you twelve and one of you is a devil ?" 

IV. Jesus had an Honor Roll of those who had stood by 
Him in temptation. 

(1) Where does He speak of "My temptations"? 

(2) What does He promise to those who have been true to 
Him? 

(3) Give the names on the Honor Roll at the cross, (a) 
How many men? (b) How many women? 

(4) Who was on the Paradise Honor Roll, on Good Friday 
evening ? 

V. Jesus had a beautiful Resurrection Honor Roll. 

(1) Who headed the list on the first Easter morning? 

(2) Who came next? 

(3) Who was a week late in getting his place on the list. Why? 

(4) Who made up "Peter's Fishing Party" one day in Eas- 
tertide ? Their names are given in the last chapter of one of 
the Gospels. Find them for me. 

(5) St. Paul says there were more than five hundred on the 
Honor Roll of those who saw Jesus all at once. Find the pas- 
sage. 

(6) "Last of all He was seen of me also as of one born out 
of due time." Where did St. Paul ever see Jesus ? 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 



147 



VI. There was a beautiful Bethany Honor Roll, 
(i) Of social intercourse. 

(2) Of sorrow and sympathy. 

(3) Of feasting after sorrow. 

(4) Of an opening heaven and an ascending Saviour. 
Find these occasions in the Gospels and tell me as many as 

you can of those who were present, and thus got on the Honor 
Roll of Bethany. 

VII. What a blessed Roll of Honor that was at Pentecost ! 
There was a little prayer meeting, always the beginning of 

Pentecost. Just after Bethany and Olivet and the ascension, 
a little group of men and women gathered together in an up- 
per room in Jerusalem and began to pray, and continued with 
"one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and 
Mary, the mother of Jesus and His brethren.'' 

(1) Find the passage and give me the names on the Honor 
Roll of this "Prayer-Producing-Pentecost Meeting." 

(2) Tell me why you think, Mary, the mother of Jesus, 
should be there. 

(3) How often after this prayer meeting is she mentioned in 
the Bible? 

(4) You all know from Acts ii. 41, how many were on the 
Honor Roll of the Day of Pentecost. How do you know those 
on the Roll were (a) faithful? (b) kept together? (c) shared 
with each other? (d) sold their property? (e) full of joy and 
praise? 


















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Lesson XLIII 




X()\Y FOR some answers to hard 
questions." First a few of those we have 
asked and some of you have answered. 
We will take up first some of the ques- 
v j ^ tions about stones : 

if % I. "I will make thy windows of agate" 

(Isaiah liv. 12). The agate is a clouded 
gem, with bands or groups of colors, not always 
clear, and yet very beautiful. It seems to mean 
that the windows of our souls are like our eyes, 
often dimmed with clouds and tears. "We see Him 
through a glass darkly" (I. Cor. xiii. 12), and yet 
the very tears like raindrops become prisms 
through which the seven rainbow tints of God's 
perfect love can be seen in the face of Jesus Christ. 
The Revised Version translates the passage : "I 
"/ill make thy pinnacles of rubies," etc. Is not that 
beautiful? Perhaps it means that the very high- 
est points of our spiritual experience will be radi- 
ant with the crimson glow of the blood of Jesus 
Christ. 

II. "It is better for thee to enter into life halt 
cr maimed or with one eye, rather than having two 
hands, or two feet, or two eyes to be cast into hell 
fire" (Mark xviii. 8, 9). This was one of our hard- 
est questions. 

Observe (1) that it was said in connection with 
stumbling stones and little children. I think it 
means among other things that it is better to have 
only one hand and use it to hold up some little 



Answer- 
ing 
Ha,rd 

Questions 




150 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

tired child, stumbling and crying on its way home to its mother, 
than to have two hands and never use them except in "washing 
each other," and taking good care of themselves, or as the pro- 
phet says, and as thousands are doing daily, "They hunt every 
man his brother with a net." 

"That they may do evil with both hands earnestly" (Micah 
vii. 3). It is better to grope or limp your way to Jesus, as the 
blind and lame did in the temple (Matt. xxi. 14), where the 
children were singing "Hosanna to the Son of David" (was it the 
music of the children's voices that guided them I wonder ?) than 
with two eyes to see only the lights and sights of this lower 
world, or with two feet to walk straight into the "hell gates" 
which are open day and night for those who will enter into them. 

"Mine eyes are ever looking unto the Lord, for He shall 
pluck my feet out of the net" (Psalm xxv. 15). Take care of 
your eyes and God will take care of your feet. 

Now a few further thoughts about "Bible Hard Questions," 
who asked them and who answered them. 

(1) Tell me where in the Bible the expression "hard ques- 
tions" is first used. 

(2) Who asked them ? 

(3) Where does Jesus speak and what does He say of this 
asker of hard questions" ? 

(4) Who answered these questions ? 

(5) Where does Jesus speak and what does He say of him? 

(6) Tell me the name of a man beginning with "S." who (a) 
"put forth a riddle ;" (b) gave the people seven days to answer 
it, and promised (c) "thirty sheets and thirty changes of gar- 
ments" to anyone who should guess it. 

"Nothing is too hard for Jesus," and of course no hard ques- 
tion could puzzle Him. People canie to Him with all kinds of 
questions, some foolish, and some meant to puzzle Him, if thev 
could. 

He had three ways of answering questions, and I am sure we 



Bible Latmps for Little Feet 



151 



can learn something from our Lord in His ways of replying to 
people. 

First He answered them with words, always wise and true. 

The disciples of John came to Him twice, and asked Him : 
(i) "Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft and Thy disciples 
fast not?" and (2) "Art Thou He that should come, or do we 
look for another?" 

Find His beautiful answers to these two questions. 

Once the Scribes and Pharisees asked of Jesus : "Why do 
Thy disciples transgress the traditions of the elders, for they 
wash not their hands when they eat bread?" Tell me His 
straightforward answer to that question, and what you think it 
means for us now. 

A great rabbi, or doctor of the law once asked Jesus : "How 
can a man be born when he is old?" Tell me His wonderful 
answer, and ask : "Is this true of me?" 




Lesson XLIV 



Some 
Shut I 



i\s 





I PAID a visit the other day to a 
little friend in New York, who 
is an invalid from spinal and 
hip disease. For years she has 
been "shut in" with God while 
you and I have been able to run 
about, without pain or weak- 
ness ; to play, to work, to travel, perhaps thous- 
ands of miles, and never know what "shut in" 
means, except when we willingly retire to our cozy 
rooms and our comfortable beds for a good night's 
rest. 

I was so blessed myself as I looked into her 
patient, happy face in spite of all the solitude and 
suffering, that I thought it would be a blessing 
and inspiration to you, my beloved children, to 
study together in our Bibles the stories of some of 
those who have been "shut in." 

1. By God. 

2. For God. 

3. By Man. 

4. By the Devil. 

5. By their own fault, and yet all in some way 
for God's glory. 

1. Tell me if you can, where in the Bible the 
expression "shut in" is first used. 

2. How many human beings formed this first 
"shut in" society? 

3. How long were they thus "shut in" by God? 

4. Tell me some of the strange companions 
these "shut ins" had, and 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 153 

5. The names of two who went out, before they did into the 
big world again? 

6. There are two ''shut ins," mentioned in the Bible, whose 
stories every boy should read. Yes, the girls, too, for they are 
full of lessons of life for us all. Their names begin with "J." 
One we know very well. The other not quite so well. The first 
lived 1729 years before Jesus came. The second 629, a differ- 
ence of just 1,100 years. Their "shut in" room was not bright 
and sunny, with flowers and pictures and books, and many com- 
forts such as some of our dear "shut ins" have now. But in one 
case, 

First, a pit and then a prison, and 

Second, a pit in a prison, and the one little comfort in each 
case, the Bible says, they had. "In the pit there was no water." 
Only mud. A soft, but not nice bed, for a child of God to lie 
on. 

Find, read and study these stories of the two Bible "shut ins" 
whose names begin with "J.," and when you lie down tonight on 
your clean, soft, white litle bed, think of the 

(1) Mud bed, and 

(2) Mud.bath, which poor "J." had in Jerusalem, so long 
ago, for "many days." 

7. Another "shut in" of the far-away Bible times. This time 
a baby boy whose name you know well, and his story too. He 
is the one of the youngest "shut ins" of years before Jesus came. 
His name begins with "M." and has a curious meaning, which 
I would like you to give me. 

He must have been a lovely baby, for the Bible says : 

(1) "He was a goodly child." And here are some of the 
meanings the word goodly had in those days : polite, courteous, 
refined, witty, clever, charming, graceful. What a baby boy for 
a mother to love and care for, and sisters and brothers to kiss 
and be good to. 

(2) The Bible says again, "He was exceeding fair" (Acts 



154 Bible L^mps for Little Feet 

vii. 20). And if you look in the margin, you will see it reads, 
"Fair to God." That is, beautiful for God; having all his 
beauty from God, and going to use it for, and give it back to 
God as something held in trust for others till his life work was 
done. 

(3) Once more the Bible says, "He was a proper child" 
(Heb. xi. 23). And you know that word means, just right; 
"The right boy (or man as we say) in the right place." Not a 
square peg in a round hole, or a round peg in a square hole, but 
a boy fitting and filling his place, and his place just fitting him 
like a good suit of clothes. 

And yet this boy, so beautiful, witty and clever, and good, 
was a "shut in." 

(1) For three months. Where? Give chapter and verse. 

(2) In a queer little room that moved about. 

(3) In a big house, they called a palace, where, though he 
had lots of money, food and raiment, and had servants to wait 
on him, and be called the son of the king's daughter, he was not 
happy because he was "shut out" from the people he loved. 




Lesson XLV 



More 
Shut Ins 





TODAY is to be our second talk on 
the "Shut-Ins" of the Bible. The 
last one we spoke of was Moses, 
who was a "Shut-In'' when a child, 
and a "Shut-Out" when a man, just 
when he thought he was to enter in 
forever. 

I. Tell me: (i) When was Moses shut out? 
(?) From what was Moses shut out? (3) Why was 
Moses shut out? (4) Whose fault beside his own, 
was it? 

One verse in the 106th Psalm tells the sad 
story. Here are the keywords in the verse : "Pro- 
voked," and "Unadvisedly." Have a little talk 
v\ ith papa and mamma about that verse, and see 
what the lesson in it is for us all, big and little 
B. B.'s. 

II. These people so dear and so trying to 
Moses were themselves "shut in" once, and were 
in a terrible way about it. 

What a crowd of "Shut-Ins" they were indeed ! 
Think of it, 600,000 on foot that were men, besides 
women and children (See Exodus xii. 37, and 
Numbers xi. 21). 

(1) Where are we told they were all shut in? 
(2) What was before them ? (3) What was behind 
them? (4) Who was above them? (5) How did 
they get out? (6) What is the meaning of the 
word "Exodus"? (7) Joseph spoke of it one hun- 
dred and ninety-eight years before it happened 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 157 

(See Hebrews xi. 22). (8) Moses and Elias spoke with Jesus 
about His "exodus'' on the Mount of Transfiguration in St. 
Luke ix. 31, 'and (9) St. Peter speaks of his own "exodus" in his 
second epistle, first chapter and fifteenth verse. It is a beau- 
tiful word when you think of it in this way. F. W. Faber has 
these beautiful lines about it : — 

"I would the light of reason, Lord, 
Up to the last might shine, 
That my own hands might hold my soul, 
Until it passed to Thine. 

"But when and where and by what pain 
All this is one to me, 
I only long for such a death. 
As most shall honor Thee." 

III. The people of a whole city beginning with "J." were 
once "shut-ins." The Bible says : "None went out and none 
came in." 

(1) How long ago was this? (2) How long was the city 
thus shut up? (3) In what strange way was it taken? (4) Who 
were the only ones that ever got out? (5) One of these was a 
woman. Tell me her name and her strange story. (6) How 
often is she mentioned in the Bible ? 

IV. Two little creatures were once "shut in" while their 
mothers went on a strange errand. The errand was a blessing 
to many, but made orphans of the little "shut-ins." 

Some one has told the story this way in the form of a Bible 
riddle :— 

*'\Ye left our little ones at home 

And whither went we did not know. 
We for the Church's sake did roam. 

And lost our lives in doing so. 
We wandered far in a perfect way. 

With the wicked full in view. 
To men we lived, to God we died. 
Yet of religion never knew." 



158 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

Tell me the story in your own words from I. Samuel vi. 10- 

15. 

V. Far back in the days of Elijah (910 B.C.), when times 
were bad and the heavens were "shut up" three years and six 
months (Luke iv. 25; James v. 17), there was a sore famine in 
the land. Two parties of "shut-ins" were cared for by a man of 
God whose name begins with "O." 

Tell me: (1) How many were in each party? (2) Where 
were they shut in? (3) What were they fed on ? (4) Why were 
they shut in? (5) How many others did God say He had left 
"who had not bowed the knee to Baal"? 

VI. There is a beautiful word for the "shut-ins" in Isaiah 
xlix. 9, and Zechariah ix. 12. Get it and pass it on to some 
"prisoner of hope" who may be so tired of "watching and wait- 
ing." 

VII. Who do you think was the : 

(1) First "shut-in" of the New Testament? (2) By whom 
and for what was he shut in? (3) Where and what was the 
name of the place? (4) Jesus knew all about it and yet did 
not prevent his being shut in. (5) He died a sad death while 
shut in, though he had been very true to Jesus all his life. (6) 
How many of us, I wonder, would be willing to do and die as 
he did, without knowing "the reason why"? Passing in si- 
lence and darkness away, "no brave words on our lips," but just 
believing that what we know not now, we shall know hereafter. 

"Alone with God I like to be, 

What makes you ask me why? 
I love to hear His voice so sweet, 
He listens to my cry. 

"Alone with God, it is the place 
Where we His children haste, 
To listen to His loving voice, 
And see His blessed face. 



Lesson XLVI 




THE ''Shut-Ins" of the New Testament 
are to be our lesson today. This is the 
third on this subject and our last for 
awhile, and I want it to be a real bless- 
ing to you as I hope the first and sec- 
ond have been. 

I. Jesus Himself was a "Shut-In" 
once. He was only a baby boy then, but I am 
sure He has been able ever since to feel with everv 
little traveler and fugitive, carried by his mother 
on her arms to a place of safety in times of danger 
and trial. 

Tell me: (i) How old Jesus was at this time. 
(2) Where He had to fly to with His mother. (3) 
From whom He was hiding. (4) How many 
formed the "Shut-In" party. (5) What dreadful 
thing happened to many babies while Jesus was 
"shut in." (6) What old prophet, His name be- 
gins with "H" had told of this little "Shut-in" par- 
ty, 740 years before it happened, and about their 
"coming out." 

II. Once again, when a grown man, Jesus was 
a "Shut-in." 

(1) In a very lonely place. Where? (2) With a 
very dreadful person. Who? (3) In an awful 
struggle. What? (4) For how long? (5) Who 
met Him and comforted Him when He came out ? 

III. Perhaps of all the "Shut-Ins" and "Shut- 
Outs" of the New Testament were those whom 
Jesus pitied most and loved to comfort and heal, 



New 

Testament 
Shut In 
Ones 




160 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

because no one else would or could — their names begin with 
"L." 

(i) Find a case where ten of them were let out from their 
awful "shut-in misery at once. (2) What suggestive question 
did Jesus ask about some of them after He had healed them 
all? (3) What similar question might He ask about some of 
«:s after some great mercy or deliverance shown to us? 

IV. Surely the blind may be called "shut-ins," though they 
can sometimes go about, and take some part in active life. 
"Shut in" and "shut out" from so much that you and I can see 
and enjoy. Finish these verses for me and you will see some of 
the beautiful instances of Jesus' pity for the blind : 

(1) "Two blind men followed Him," etc. (2) "Two blind 
men sitting," etc. (3) "The blind and the lame came to Him." 
Where? (4) "They bring a blind man," etc. (5) "He took the 
blind man by the hand," etc. (6) "The blind man said," What ? 
(7) "A man blind from his birth." Read the whole story over 
again and tell me what the blind man said that you can best re- 
member. 

V. How many "shut-ins" by death did Jesus "let out" into 
the light of life ? 

One was a little girl. (1) How old was she? (2) Her fa- 
ther's name? (3) Jesus said a strange word to the dead child. 
What does it mean in English ? (4) What did Jesus tell them to 
give her after she came to life? 

Another was a young man. 

(1) Where did he live? (2) What did Jesus say (a) to his 
mother ? (b) to the young man himself ? 

A third sat with Jesus at a feast of thanksgiving after being 
a "shut-in" with death and the grave for four days. 

You know his name, tell me its meaning. His sister's name:, 
you also know. What do they mean ? 

VI. This word "shut-in" has some beautiful meanings in 
the Bible, referring to the silent, secret, deep things of God for 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 161 

our spiritual life. Find the passages and they will help you to 
see what I mean. 

(i) "Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue," etc. 
(2) "Thou shalt keep them secretly," etc. Where and from 
what? (3) I will give thee the treasures of darkness and hidden 
riches of secret places," etc. Who says that? (4) "The hidden 
wisdom which God ordained," etc. (5) "The hidden man of 
the heart," etc. Learn the whole of this beautiful verse by 
heart, and see what an ornament it will be to you. (6) "Your life 
is hid with Christ," etc. Where? (7) "Will I give to eat of 
the hidden manna." What do you think it is ? 

VII. We are all going to be "shut-ins" bye and bye. 

(1) Where? "He shall go no more out," etc. Learn the 
whole passage and you will be able to answer the question. (2) 
With whom? "Therefore are they before the throne of God," 
etc. (3) From whom and what? "There shall be no more curse," 
etc. "No night, no candle." They shall see His face. "His name 
shall be on their foreheads." What blessed "shut-ins" they will 
be. May you and I be among them forever. 

To close with, read this little story and testimony of a "shut- 
in" printed in one of our Xew York papers the other day. Per- 
haps it will make some of us more thankful and contented with 
our lot and more thoughtful and prayerful about such "shut-ins" 
like this one, Mr. Conrad, and our dear friend, Bella Cook, a 
"shut-in" for nearly fifty years in this city. 

"We were told that Mr. Conrad was ossifying. He was un- 
able to move his body save his eyes and his tongue. He never 
complains. To brighten his birthday his friend desired letters 
sent to him, and in his reply he says that he is utterly helpless 
and his every want attended to by a faithful nurse, a lady whose 
service is performed without pay. But He adds, 'But I am very 
thankful that I have a clear head and an active brain. This 
blessing, with the use my tongue, makes me feel that there can 
be something still in life to live for.' ?: 



Me-Nots 




Lesson XLVII 

WE always like to give the baby a present 
of some kind on his or her birthday. 
Something to "remember by;" "sou- 
venir" the French people it; "keep- 
Souvenirs r '- t <\ sake," "forget-me-not," we Anglo-Sax- 
^" ^° r . get " ^^^ ons call it. A cup, a ring, a letter, a 

book, anything pretty, bright and use- 
ful, to our little friend to keep, and to keep us with 
it in loving memory perhaps all through life, and 
long after we who gave the souvenir have passed 
away. 

Now I propose to give each of you a birthday 
souvenir, a keepsake, a forget-me-not — no, a "for- 
get-Him-not," — for I want you to remember Him 
above all, if you forget everybody and everything 
else in the world. 

These keepsakes, or souvenirs that we get from 
our fathers and mothers and friends, are gener- 
ally made of gold or silver, or some kind of pre- 
cious metal or stone. But these I am to give you 
from our Lord Jesus are "more precious than 
gold." They are "above rubies" (Job xxviii. 18). 
They are "like apples of gold in pictures of silver" 
(Prov. xxv. n). They are beautiful to look at, 
they are like sweet music to our ears, they are 
more delicious than the perfume of the most frag- 
rant flowers, they are sweeter to the taste than 
honey and the honey-comb (Ps. xix. 10). They 
are better to eat than the best food we have ever 
taken. For thev are the "bread" that came down 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 163 

from heaven, and of which if we truly eat we shall not die. (John 

vi. 50.) 

Our birthday gifts and toys we tire of and toss away after 
a while. Of these we grow fonder every day, and we find them 
more and more beautiful and precious as we grow older and 
get near the end of our journey. They are more than food for 
soul and body. For He who gives them to us says : "They are 
Spirit and they are Life." 

Heaven and earth, friends, foes, pass away, but these "sou- 
venir" words of Jesus, never. (Matt. xxiv. 35.) 

These "keepsakes" or "forget-me-nots" Jesus said : — 

(1) To people, right before Him. 

(2) About people at a distance. 

(3) For people who could not be on the spot. 

(4) Through people who took them directly from Jesus and 
passed them on as precious heirlooms to others, and at last 
to us who have and love them today. 

St. Paul w r as one of these trustees of the "forget-me-nots" 
of Jesus, and you know what he says in Acts xx. 35 : "Remem- 
ber the words of the Lord Jesus." You can repeat the rest of 
the text. 

For a beginning then, of this beautiful subject of the "sou- 
venirs," silver, gold, and precious stones of the words of the 
Lord Jesus, let us take : — 

First, the "forget-me-nots" He gave to the people in trouble. 

I will give you the name or condition of the man or woman 
and you give me the "souvenir," or "word of remembrance." 

(1) It was His own mother (St. Luke ii.). "I have sought 
Thee sorrowing." The answer is His first recorded word and is 
a beautiful souvenir for our whole life in and for God. Find it. 

(2) To this same sweet mother He gave a "forget-me-not" 
from the cross just before He died. Surely a "passion flower," 
red with His precious blood. Tell me what it was, and what you 
think it meant. 



164 Bible Laimps for Little Feet 

(3) Jesus gave a lovely "forget-me-not" to a poor woman 
who had been sick for twelve years, and I am sure she never lost 
it. 

(4) Peter once got a "souvenir" from Jesus when he was in 
desperate need, when the devil was hard after him to "sift him 
as wheat," and I am sure it was a forget-me-not for all his life 
on earth, and he is enjoying it in paradise today. Find it for me. 

To close with here is a beautiful Bible Riddle fresh from a 
friend of little children : — 

He is not Noah, nor Noah's son, nor a Levite, nor John the 
Baptist, nor yet the Wandering Jew, for he was with Noah in 
the ark. 

The Scriptures make mention of him, particularly St. John, 
St. Mark and St. Luke. So we may believe he was no imposter. 

He knows no parent. He never lay upon his mother's 
breast. His beard is such as no man ever wore. He goes bare- 
footed and barelegged like a grave old friar. 

He wears no hat in summer or winter, but often appears 
with a crown upon his head. 

His coat is neither knit nor spun, nor hair, silk, linen or 
woolen, bark or sheepskin. Yet it abounds in a varietly of col- 
ors, and fits close to the skin. 

He is wonderfully temperate, for he never drinks anything 
but cold water. He would rather take his dinner in a farm- 
er's barn than in a king's palace. 

He is very watchful. He sleeps not in a bed but sits in a 
singular kind of chair with his clothes on. 

He was alive at the crucifixion. Nearly all the world hears 
him. He once preached a sermon which convicted a man of 
bis sin, and caused him to weep bitterly. He never was mar- 
ried, vet he has favorites whom he loves dearlv. 



Lesson XLVIII 




THE "Forget-me-nots" of Jesus is our 
study again today. Let us go into His 
garden and gather a few more of these 
''sweet souvenirs" which He handed 
personally to : 

I. People in trouble. 
A woman once brought a "souven- 
ir" to Jesus that was so sweet and strong that it 
filled all the house with its perfume. 

Find the three accounts of this beautiful inci- 
dent, and tell me what "forget-me-not" 

(i) St. Matthew; (2) St. Mark; (3) St. John 
mentions as Jesus' gift to her in return. 

(2) They say the crushed flower always gives 
out the sweetest perfume. Our Lord Jesus, 
crushed and bleeding to death on the cross, gave 
with His parting breath, seven sweet souvenirs to 
those who were murdering him, and through them 
to the world He was dying to save. 

I will give you the first words of each in the 
order in which Jesus gave them, and you will 
please finish the saying, giving chapter and verse 
for each. 

First "forget-me-not" from the cross, (1) "Fa- 
ther, forgive them," etc., (2) "Today Thou," etc. ; 
(3) "Woman, behold," etc.; (4) "My God, My 
God, why" etc. ; (5) "I thirst," etc. ; (6) "It is fin- 
ished ;" (7) "Father, into Thy hands." 

\\ 'hat a bouquet of passion flowers is here. 
Bound together with the blue ribbon which begins 



Forget- 
Me-Nots 
of 
Jesus 




166 Bible L^mps for Little Feet 

and ends with that lovely word, ''Father," "Father," and the 
centre flower of all, "My God," "My God." 

And bound up in this lovely seven-flowered bouquet is (i) 
a weed, soiled and sinful, that has been washed and turned into 
a "Beauty Rose," to whom Jesus said, "Today," etc. Thou shalt 
be planted in My paradise garden, to be plucked up no more 
forever." 

(2) A lily white soul from whom was born "this same Jesus," 
at once her Son and her Saviour (See Luke i. 47), and whose 
blood cleansed her just as it did the dying thief. "From all sin" 
(I. John i. 7). Surely this must be the very "bundle of Life," 
of which Abigail speaks to David in I. Samuel xxv. 29. Per : 
haps this is the "rainbow round about the throne" of Revelation 
iv. 3, not like the rainbows we see, which seem to go only half 
way round — but with "the Lamb in the midst of the throne," 
and circling around Him as the true Center of all things, the 
Rainbow of His perfect white love, shining through the tears 
and sorrows of His children, like dew raindrops, is transfigured 
into the violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red 
of that beautiful "Bow of Promise" which will never fade away. 

II. Then think of some of the lovely "forget-me-nots" He 
sent to the people who never saw Him in the flesh, but who 
through those who did see Him and the words He gave them 
for us have learned to know and love Him. "Whom having 
not seen, ye love, in whom though now ye see Him not, yet 
believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." 
Do you know who said this about Jesus and us ? Give chapter and 
verse. Jesus was speaking one day to a man who had seen and 
been with Him for three years and a half, and yet only half be- 
lieved. "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have be- 
lieved." Surely that is a lovely souvenir for us, and for all who 
never saw Jesus in the flesh. 

Tell me the man's name and how often he is mentioned in 
the Gospels. 



Bible Lamps for Little Feet 167 

III. What a beautiful bunch of sweet "forget-me-nots" 
could be ma^le out of the "Whosoevers" of Jesus. 

For remember this word always means more than those 
present when our Lord said the words. It means : Whosoever 
did believe, whosoever does believe, and whosoever will believe, 
i r and shall be blessed. 

One day His mother and His brethren were sending to Him, 
seeking Him, and calling for Him as if He belonged to them, 
and to them only. He turned to the people about Him, and 
said : — 

(i) "Whosoever the same is my brother and my sister 

and mother.'' Find the passage and fill out the blank. 

Here are five more for you to pick out of this garden of the 
Lord, and bind together with the famous one in John iii. 16, 
end wear them not on your breast so much as in your heart, till 
the whole house of your soul and body is filled with their per- 
fume. 

(2) "Whosoever shall thirst again, but," etc. 

(3) "Whosoever hath eternal life," etc. 

(4) "Wnosoever shall never die." 

(5) "Whosoever shall not abide in darkness." 

(6) "Whosoever take of the water of life freely." 

God bless you, my little ones, and better still, make you a 
blessing. 





One Who ForgettetK Not 




Lesson XLIX 

ANOTHER talk on the "Forget-me-nots" 

of Jesus. This time about the other 
world, past, present, and to come. Our 
Lord has left us "souvenirs" of it ; some Forget- 

, u-c 4. Me-Nots 
verv sweet, some very sad. rorget- f . 

' J & . of the 

me-nots" of the Blessed Dead, and ot World 

the Bright Angels with whom they are Beyond 
living in the presence of God. 

"Souvenirs" so sad of the other place, and the 
other people. The one for our great comfort, the 
other for our warning, lest we also should go into 
that place of torment. (See Luke xvi. 28.) 

I. Abraham lived on the earth for 175 years, 
and died 1822 years before Jesus was born. (Gen. 
xxv. 7, 8). Yet He knew Jesus, and Jesus knew 
him in a very real way, and our Lord has left us 
some beautiful "Forget-me-nots" of the father of 
the faithful. ' 

Five times Jesus mentions Abraham's name in 
the Gospels, and says of him, though he had been 
dead eighteen hundred years : "Abraham rejoiced 
to see My day, and He saw it and was glad," and 
then adds these wonderful words : "Before Abra- 
ham was I am." Find these five places for me, 
and tell me what you think the last text means. 

II. Moses lived in this world for 120 years, and 
passed up to God 145 1 years before the angels 
said to the shepherds, "L T nto you is born this day," 
etc. (Deut. xxxiv. 5-7). But though so far apart 
in time they knew each other and met each other, 



170 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

and talked together in a certain place one night. Jesus has 
left us fifteen souvenirs of Moses. Let the big scholars find 
them all if you can, and the "wee ones" with father and mother's 
help find these five : 

(i) "There appeared unto them Moses," etc. 

(2) "If they hear not Moses," etc. 

(3) "That the dead are raised even Moses shewed," etc. 

(4) "As Moses lifted up," etc. 

(5) "Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed Ale." 
III. Elijah or Elias lived and went up to glory more than 

900 years before Jesus came, David 1,000 years, and Solomon 
1,000 years before the first Christmas Day, Isaiah or Esaias, 
780 years, Jeremiah, 829 years, and Daniel, 803 years before 
the Baby-boy of Bethlehem was born, yet of each Jesus has 
left us a "souvenir" in the Gospels, and I shall be so glad if 
vou will find, if only one of each, giving chapter and verse. 

These are some of the happy souls in the other world of 
whom Jesus speaks. But He does not let us forget the other 
side of that other world, separated by the "Great Gulf," which 
none can pass. (See Luke xvi. 26.) 

We must be true to all Jesus says in His Word, and look at 
the dark side of these "Forget-me-not" as well as the bright 
one. 

What a sad souvenir that is of the woman who "looked 
back" and became a pillar of salt." 

Her very body became a "Forget-me-not" to all who passed 
that way, perhaps for years, of the peril of even a look of dis- 
obedience. Give the words of Jesus in the Gospel about her r 
and the place in Genesis where the story is told. 

Then what an awful "Forget-me-not" is that which Abra- 
ham, in Paradise, gives us of the rich man in torment, when 
he says to him, "Son remember," etc. . Find the place in the 
Gospel. Finish the text, and then remember that perhaps the 
most awful part of the suffering of the wicked in the other world 



Bible Latinps for Little Feet 171 

is that they cannot forget ! Their sinful, selfish life in this 
world will be an everlasting "Forget-me-not" in that place to 
which they have gone. 

Only one more, but the saddest of all, because it is a solemn 
souvenir of a man chosen by Jesus for heaven (John vi. 70), 
who by his own sin lost all, and went "to his own place" in the 
land of darkness (See Acts i. 17, 25) forever. 

Here are some of the "Forget-me-nots" Jesus has given us 
01 him. Find the places for me, and ponder and pray over the 
case of the lost disciple and apostle of Jesus. 

(1) "Who also betrayed Him." 

(2) "Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss ?" 

(3) "Then entered Satan into," etc. 

(4) "What thou doest do quickly." 

(5) "He went immediately out and it w r as night." 

(6) "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betray- 
ed. It had been good for that man if he had not been born." 

From our study of these dire, sad, sad mementoes of a lost 
soul, we will surely remember one more, given to every one by 
this same Jesus. 

(7) "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. 
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." 



Lesson L 



Forget- 
Me-Nots 
Once 
More 





ONE more talk and our last for the pres- 
ent, on the "Forget-me-nots'' of Jesus. 

There is a beautiful little purple flower 
called heartsease. 
Because its seeds, o'er memory's desert blown, 
Spring up in heartease such as Eden knew. 

— Lowell. 
Well, surely if words can be flowers 
like this, the parting sayings of Jesus to His anxious 
and troubled ones must have been heartsease to 
them, if we can judge by the comfort they have 
been to millions of human hearts for 2,000 years 
since they were spoken. 

There is a heartsease chapter in St. John's Gos- 
pel which is perhaps read oftener at sick and dy- 
ing beds than any other in the Bible. You know 
it well I am sure, and I only want you now to look 
at it again and see : 

1. How often in it Jesus speaks of "heart trou- 
ble," the one terrible disease to be dreaded in body 
and soul. 

2. His great remedy for it. 

3. How you and I can have this "heartsease" 
at hand at any hour of the day or night. 

4. Its name begins with "P," as does the lit- 
tle flower which means the same as "heartsease," 
and the number of letters in each is the same. Find 
the verses in which Jesus uses it to comfort sor- 
rowing and broken hearts, and then take a little 
bunch of it to some one living near you as soon 
as you can. 



Bible L^mps for Little Feet 173 

5. Then find the very last "forget-me-not" which Jesus sent 
clown by the angels that day when He was going up to His 
rest and gfory in heaven. It begins with these words : "This 
same Jesus," and it has been breathing perfume and peace into 
watching and waiting hearts from that day to this. 

II. Then there are "souvenirs" of Jesus, that we are to give 
Him of His work in us and through us, here on earth, when we 
meet Him "in the morning." 

These "forget-me-nots" are called by different names and 
many have different forms, and even colors like the flowers in a 
bouquet, but they will all be fragrant with His love, and the in- 
cense of our praise and worship. 

For the tearful sowers and patient workers in God's field 
these "souvenirs of service" are called "sheaves." 

1. Of whom is it said, "Let her glean even among the 
sheaves"? 

2. Where is the beautiful promise, "They that sow in tears 
shall reap in joy"? (Margin, in singing.) 

3. "He that goeth forth and weepeth," etc. Finish the verse 
for me and see what the margin says about "precious seed." 

Sometimes these "forget-me-nots" are called "jewels." 

1. Souvenirs of sad service and slavery in Egypt, the poor 
Israelitish women carried away with them on that wonderful 
night of deliverance': "jewels of silver," and "jewels of gold." 
Find the passage and two other places in the same book where 
this is mentioned. 

2. Where does it say : "As a bride adorneth herself with her 
jewels"? And what do you think these jewels will mean for you 
and me when we "shall see the King in His beauty" ? We are 
reminded of His jewels in the beautiful hymn that says : — 

Little children, little children, who love their Redeemer, 
Are His jewels, precious jewels. His loved and His own. 

On what passage of Scripture is this sweet children's song 



174 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

based, and how many of these living jewels would you and I 
have to give our Lord if He came back tomorrow? (See Isaiah 
viii. 18.)" 

III. Then think, oh! think of the "souvenirs" the "forget- 
me-nots'' that are waiting for us, when 

The work is done, the rest begun, 

.The training time is forever past, 
And the home of rest in the mansion blest, 

Is safely, joyously reached at last. 

There will, I think, be three kinds of "forget-me-nots" in 
heaven, waiting for us, when we get home, which will make hea- 
ven home indeed, and sweeter to us than even our own personal 
joy and peace could ever make it. 

I shall tell you what I think they are, and then you can see 
from your Bibles if I am right. 

i. Boys and girls that you and I have brought to Jesus or 
helped by our example to live near, and be faithful to Him 
and His teaching even unto death. 

(a) See what Proverbs xi. 30, says about "a soul-winner." 
(b) And Daniel xii. 3, about those who "turn many to righteous- 
ness." (c) Peter's joy on meeting those 3,000 souls whom he 
brought to Christ through one Holy Ghost sermon (Acts ii. 41). 
(d) St. James' word about Him that "converteth a sinner from 
the error of his way, shall "save a soul from death," etc. 

2. Crowns on their heads and ours ; and palms in our hands 
and theirs ; and songs in our mouths, will be lovely souvenirs in 
heaven with those we have loved unto the kingdom here, and 
who shall shine as jewels in our crowns in the day of future 
recompense. 

Oh! the welcome that waits at the shining gates 
For those who are following far, yet near. 

When all shall meet at His glorious feet, 

In the licvht and the love of His home so dear. 



Bible Larrups for Little Feet 175 

Find just one verse each on: (i) crowns of life, righteous- 
ness and glory. (2) Palms. (3) Harps. (4) Songs, waiting for 
those who can say with St. Paul, "I have fought the good fight, 
I have fiinished my course, I have kept the faith." 

Translated 

Day dawn a.?d morning star, 

And upward call for me, 
Ring out, ye bells of heaven, clear and far. 

When T my Lord shall see. 

Caught up to meet the Lord, 
With sweep of angel wing, 
No winding sheet for me, or house of sod, 
Oh, death, where is thy sting? 

Put out to sea no more, 

Drop anchor, furl the sail: 
My storm-tossed bark at last has reached the shore, 

I'm moored within the veil. 

—A. J. Gordon, D.D. 





The Flight Into Egypt 



Lesson LI 




IT SOON will be Christmas day, and 
of course, our talk, like our thoughts, 
must be of Him who "as at this time" 
came from heaven to the manger that 
He might bring us from the manger to 
heaven. How freshly each year at this 
time the story, so old and yet always 
new, comes back to us. Again the Light shines 
in the wintry sky. Again the shepherds are 
started by it, and look up into the open heaven. 
Again the heavenly music bursts into the angel 
song: "Glory to God, good will to men." Again 
in spirit we rise and go with them "even unto 
Bethlehem," and see this thing which is come to 
pass which the Lord hath made known to us (Luke 
ii. 15). Once more with them first, and then again 
with the wise men a little later, we enter the cave- 
stable, and draw nigh in wondering reverence to 
the" manger bed," and looking in we see the 
sweetest face that ever sun shone on, the face of a 
new-born babe, of a virgin mother, and yet alwavs 
more than that, even the brightness of His Fa- 
ther's glory and the express image of His Person" 
(Heb. i. 3). The light of the knowledge of the glo- 
ry of God in the face of Jesus Christ (II. Cor. iv. 
6). But I need not say more of this. You and I, 
young and old, rich and poor, black and white, 
brown and red and yellow faces in every land un- 
der the sun, will look again into the beautiful baby 
face on Christmas. With many a tongue and tone 



Christmas 
is 

Coming 




178 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

we shall sing again our Christmas carol and with all who love 
Him of every clime and condition, will worship in spirit and in 
truth at His manger throne, and see through it as in an open door 
the gates of heaven, and the throne of His glory there and the 
angel choir joining ours, and saying with us, "Hallelujah ! Glo- 
ry to the new-born King! 

But while we gaze and worship and sing and bring our gold 
and francincense and myrrh, let us think for a few moments of 
some of the faces that looked into His. 

First, on that Christmas morning. Second, long before 
Christmas day was heard of; and third, since then, on and on 
through all the Christmas ages until now. 

Surely the first face that saw the face of Jesus, was, next to 
His, the sweetest and most holy face God's sun ever shone 
upon, His own beautiful, holy mother. Her name is mentioned 
eight times in the first chapter of St. Luke. Find them for 
me and tell me some of the beautiful words said: (i) to her, 
and (2) of her; (3) by her. 

Second, who next to Mary do you think saw the face of Je- 
sus on the first Christmas day? His name begins with "J.", his 
home begins with "N.," his trade begins with "C." He saw 
the face of Jesus and got new power for his daily work each time 
he looked at the beautiful Baby Boy. 

Third, people all the way from heaven looked into the face 
of Jesus on that Christmas morning and went back to tell their 
loved ones there how beautiful the new-born King of men was, 
even as a Baby, born in poverty and lying in a manger. These 
people's name begins with "A." They live in heaven, but work 
on earth and we are told they are glad when even one sinner re- 
pents or turns to God. How much more glad must they have 
been when they saw for the first time in the flesh, the Saviour 
of all the sinners in all the world and all times and from all 
sin. Give me a text for each of these "alls." 

Fourth, some simple people whose name begins with "S." 



Bible L^mps for Little Feet 179 

saw the face of Jesus on the first Christmas day. Tell me : 

(i) Who they were. (2) Where they were. (3) What they 
were doing. (4) When and how they heard the good news. 

As they looked into that lovely face I think they saw more 
than a beautiful baby boy. I think they saw in Him as they 
steadfastly gazed a new meaning in an old Psalm, sung one 
thousand years before, that you and I know well. The first 

words are: "The Lord is my ?" Say it over again in 

a new way on Christmas morning, and then pray, "Lord, make 
me one of Thy little flock. Feed me in Thy green pastures. 
Lead me beside the still waters. Restore my soul. Amen." 
(5) What each of these gifts means. (6) How they went home. 

Surely these lowly people went back to watch their four- 
legged flock with new care, and new joy, since the King of Hea- 
ven had come down to take their name and be to men and wo- 
men, boys and girls, forever, what they were to a few dumb 
brutes for a short lifetime. 

Fifth, faces of men, old, grave, and learned, looked into the 
face of our Saviour Babe, and learned as they looked, that there 
was one child in the world now that knew more than all its 
"wise men" ever did or would know. Read from Psalm cxix. vs. 
99 and 100. 

Tell me: (1) W r ho they were. (2) Where they came from. 
(3) What guided them to Jesus. (4) What they offered Him. 

Sixth, other faces, not human, not angelic, looked into the 
face of Jesus on that Christmas morning. Poor, dumb, coarse 
faces, but with large eyes full of wonder at the lovely sight. 

Their name begins with "B." He was born among tame 
ones. Where is it said, "He was with the wild" ones? What 
two — each name begins with "L." but are very opposite in their 
nature, is Jesus Himself said to be in Scripture? Give me one 
text for each, and then that beautiful verse from Isaiah, which 
begins, "The wolf," etc., and ends with "A little child shall lead 
them." 




The Christmas Angels 



Lesson LII 




THIS is to be a real Christmas lesson, 
and of course it is to be full of Christ; 
for He is Christmas. It means His 
feast, His flowers, His songs, His ser- 
vices, His gifts received and given by 
and to His people. Christmas means 
"Jesus in the midst of all our fun and 
play, and our holidays, our workdays, our bright 
days and our dark ones." Christmas means Jesus 
in our homes, whether in a basement or a back- 
yard, or in a brown-stone front or a palace. 

It is to be a little bunch of stories fastened 
together into a little bouquet of Christmas flowers, 
fragrant I hope with the perfume of truth and 
heavenly peace for some tired or saddened heart. 
Xow about these Christmas stories there are some 
things worth remembering. 

First, they are all true, every one of them. 
Second, they are about two thousand years 
old, and yet they are as fresh as the dew because 
they are always true. 

Third, they will help you, boys and girls, to be 
both true and new, that is, fresh, frank young 
Christians like the author of these stories. 

Fourth, they will make the author of them 
more real to you, I hope, as one that lived here in 
this world as you and I are doing, fighting its 
temptations, overcoming its sin, sharing its sor- 
row, and making it better for His being in it. 



Christ 



Born 



182 Bible Lamps for Little Feet 

Second, they are about two thousand years old, and yet they 
are as fresh as the dew because they are always true. 

Third, they will help you, boys and girls, to be both true and 
new, that is, fresh, frank young Christians like the author of 
these stories. 

Fourth, they will make the author of them more real to you, 
I hope, as one that lived down here in this world as you and I 
are doing, fighting its temptations, overcoming its sin, sharing 
its sorrow, and making it better for His being in it. 

For remember, Jesus was not only Christmas itself, the 
meaning and power of the word, and all its suggests, but He was 
Christmas in almost everything around Him. 

He heard God in the song of the birds. They were always 
singing Christmas carols to Him. The stars over His head twin- 
kled with Christmas light and in their own way sang Him to 
sleep as He often lay on the mountain side all night alone with 
God. The flowers by the wayside looked at Him as He passed 
as much as to say : "You have brought Christmas cheer to 
us, and now we will grow and bloom better than ever, and our 
perfume will be so much sweeter now that You have talked 
about us and told people they can learn something even from 
the lilies of the field." 

And then not only was Jesus Christmas Himself and saw 
Christmas in so many things about Him, but He brought 
Christmas with Him wherever He went and made Christmas for 
so many people who never knew what the word meant and who 
had never had anything like it in their lives. 

This is what I want to show you now by giving you a few 
examples from the most wonderful Christmas Story Book ever 
written — the Bible. 

One day, just a week after that wonderful night when the 
angels sang : "Glory to God in the highest," and the shepherds 
came and saw the Wonderful Baby lying in the manger, a very 
old woman, over eighty years of age, and a man, holy and just, 



Bible LaLmps for Little Feet 183 

were waiting for Christmas to come. They were doing what you 
and I do sometimes, counting the days and yet filling them up 
with prayer and praise — a very good way, by the way, to fill up 
our waiting days. And they were waiting in a good place — one 
outside and the other inside of the House of God. The man 
perhaps, busy up to the last moment with his work in the world 
for God, and the aged woman past work, but not past worship, 
waiting inside with God, for the sight which was to make her 
glad forever. It was to be her first Christmas day on earth. 
Though she had seen eighty-four twenty-fifth of Decembers 
in her long life, she had never seen a Christmas Day. But now 
at last, her poor, dim eyes were to see the "King in His beauty.'' 
For just as she was coming in she saw a lovely woman with 
the most beautiful baby boy the world has ever seen in her 
arms ; and then a strange thing ! the holy man, who, like her, 
had been waiting so long for Christmas to come, stooped down 
and took the Beautiful Boy in his arms, and holding Him up 
in the light told God how glad he was, how willing he was to go 
or to stay, to live or to die, to be in the church, to pray, or out in 
the city at work ; for he had seen the Christmas Gift of God to a 
lost world. He had done more. He had taken this Beautiful Christ 
Child in his very arms. He had carried God. Though he was 
only a man, he had the joy of being the First Christopher — not 
the later one of the story books ; but the real one — the First 
Christ Bearer, to be followed by thousands more in all the ages 
who take Christ to be their Saviour into their hearts as this 
good man took Him into his arms. And so the aged woman and 
the holy man had their first Christmas day in Jerusalem in the 
House of God, and now for nearly two thousand years they have 
been keeping Christmas with Jesus every day in the year, and 
waiting for you and me to join them when our work is done. 
Look through the second chapter of St. Luke's Gospel and find 
for me the name of the man and the woman of this long ago 
Christmas Day when Jesus was only a Baby of eight days old. 



184 Bible Latrnps for Little Feet 

Now listen to the story of a very strange Christmas day 
which came to a little girl. 

Where now do you think? Not in heaven, not just on the 
earth; but in a place so awful you might almost call it hell. 
Six thousand devils turned out to make room for the Child Je- 
sus as He came that day along the road near the cemetery to 
bring Christmas to a human hell. Can you find the story and 
read it over and over again as a Christmas carol? See in it, 
children dear, what one look of Jesus can do for and in a human 
soul. How without a word hell can go out and heaven come into 
a poor devil-driven life, and then believe that this is what He is 
doing all over this world this very day, making Christmas in 
very hells on earth, taking men like Jerry MacAuley and Sam- 
uel Hadley and making them as full of heaven as they were of 
hell before, and sending them to carry Christ and Christmas to 
thousands of hearts as unholy and as unhappy as their own once 
were. 

From this last story you can see, dear children, in what 
strange places Christmas can be where Christ comes, at any 
hour of day or night, in any month of the year from December 
to January, in any place, in any person who will take Him in. 
He will prepare the feast, provide the food and make it Christ- 
mas-tide. 

How many more flowers I could add to this little bouquet. 
How many more beautiful Christmas stories crowd my mind to 
tell you, but I must keep them for another time, for they will 
keep ; because they are always fresh with the dew of truth, and 
fragrant with the perfume of the life of Jesus. 

And now God bless you all, dear pupils of our Bible School, 
and give you inside and outside the very Christ of God to make 
it Christmas all the time and all the way till He comes again, 



Jan 3 O, 1909. 



JAN 30 1902 



1 CC?Y DEL. TO CAT. DIV. 
JAN. 30 1902 






V 

dC 



